Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I am here today to talk about America's highway infrastructure. It is important to every State. I have just come back from Wyoming, and it clearly is important in my home State. It is important in every community. It is important in every Tribe in the country. I see that week after week in Wyoming. Our roads, our bridges, our highways, our tunnels support America's economic growth and our competitiveness. The Presiding Officer, from his home State of Missouri, knows this as well. These are an essential part, really, of everyday life for all of America.
We use the infrastructure. We use the roads, the bridges, the tunnels. We use them when we drive to work, when we head to school or we head off to summer vacation. Our economy is built on a well- functioning road system that allows products from rural areas to get transported to population centers. They are used to ship American-made products and goods from one coast to the other.
Certainly in Wyoming, we see a lot of goods coming in then being transported from the coast in California to Chicago, with truck after truck going through Wyoming. Interstates, like I-80 in my home State of Wyoming, are critical arteries for commerce in this country. Our roads create jobs. They move products, and they keep our country running and going strong.
In 2015, the U.S. transportation system moved a daily average of about 49 million tons of freight; that is, a daily average of 49 million tons of freight worth more than $53 billion--every single day. Our roads and our bridges have to keep pace. These systems are vital to our country, and they need to be taken care of. We must maintain, upgrade, and, when necessary, build new ones.
Since his election, President Trump has called on Congress to act on infrastructure. Last year, Congress answered the President's call by passing America's Water Infrastructure Act. He signed it into law. It passed this body 99 to 1. The legislation helped streamline major projects and helped keep communities safe. It made a significant investment in our Nation's dams and our locks and our ports and in drinking water systems.
Now is the time to do the same for our roads and for our bridges. That is why, today, I am introducing America's Transportation Infrastructure Act, and I am doing it along with my fellow leaders of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Ranking Member Carper and Senators Capito and Cardin.
This legislation will make a historic investment in our roads. It will cut Washington redtape. It will improve safety and will help grow our economy. America's Transportation Infrastructure Act authorizes $287 billion over 5 years from the highway trust fund. Of that money, $259 billion will go directly to the States through the highway formula funding process. This is the largest investment in America's roads in any highway bill ever passed by Congress. The legislation will help the entire country. It will ensure both rural and urban areas have access to funding.
Formula funding gives each State the flexibility it needs to address specific surface transportation needs. The formula-based approach has a proven track record of efficiently delivering infrastructure money directly to the States. America's Transportation Infrastructure Act maintains this important approach so that States will get the funds they need faster.
America's Transportation Infrastructure Act also continues successful Federal loan programs, such as the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which many people in the business know as TIFIA. TIFIA and programs like it get taxpayers significant bang for their buck. A single taxpayer dollar in the TIFIA program can be leveraged 40 times that much in terms of infrastructure spending.
Between new authorizations, leveraging within Federal loan programs, with State-match requirements and likely additions from the Commerce and Banking Committees, our bill's total impact on infrastructure will be nearly one-half trillion dollars--a historic high. With these investments, it is critical for us to speed up government approvals for important projects.
Last Congress, the Environment and Public Works Committee heard testimony about a highway safety project that I am very familiar with in Wyoming--and not too far from where the Presiding Officer lives-- near the interstate north of Sheridan, between Sheridan and Montana. It took a decade to get the permits but actually took only months to build. That has to stop. This was a safety project linking our States together. It was held up for 10 years because of Washington permits. It is unacceptable. America's Transportation Infrastructure Act cuts Washington redtape so projects can get done faster, better, cheaper, and smarter. President Trump has set a goal for his administration of completing environmental reviews for projects within 2 years. It is a goal that I applaud, and the policy is called One Federal Decision.
Our legislation makes key elements of that policy into law. Instead of several Federal agencies having duplicate requirements on the same project, the process is simplified because it needs to be simplified. Our bill gives States increased flexibility so that Federal approvals can get moving and so that project construction can get started. It also reduces the amount of paperwork that is needed from the States to complete a project. Our legislation gets long delayed safety projects moving faster. Washington shouldn't prioritize paperwork over people's safety, but that has happened in the past, and it is unacceptable.
America's Transportation Infrastructure Act makes road safety a top priority. It supports innovative research and technology deployment, including new construction technologies that will make roads safer and will expedite project delivery. For example, the bill supports technologies that allow construction projects to be managed digitally. That will enable project managers to better track projects from design through operation.
The Presiding Officer knows this and sees it, and I saw it this past weekend. When a car collides with an animal on a highway, the results can be dramatic and sometimes even deadly for both the animal and for the driver. Our bill creates a pilot program to build wildlife highway crossings to minimize the danger of vehicle-wildlife collisions.
Across the country, aging bridges are in need of maintenance. Our bill establishes a competitive grant program to help address the backlogs of bridges that are in poor condition. Our bill establishes a new program to incentivize States to lower the total number of fatalities with there being a special focus on pedestrian deaths, which are on the rise.
Of course, the climate is changing, and humans have a collective responsibility to do something about it. I believe that American innovation, not government regulation and taxation, is the answer to our addressing a changing climate. Our bill includes a climate change title that ensures the durability of our transportation infrastructure, and our bill provides flexible resources to help States reduce carbon emissions. It helps States build more resilient highways. We want to make sure that our roads and our bridges are built to withstand extreme weather events, like hurricanes and floods, or natural disasters, like wildfires, earthquakes, and rockslides.
The legislation also helps to reduce transportation-related carbon emissions. The very successful bill that had been signed into law previously and is expiring, the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, is a program that has helped communities in Wyoming and Montana to replace aging school buses and public equipment. The Diesel Emissions Reduction Act helps to reduce black carbon emissions. This is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Our bill reauthorizes this program, and it supports innovation. Carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration technologies hold the key to major emissions reductions. I have introduced the USE IT Act, along with my colleagues in the Senate, to support this important research, and it is included in this bill.
As I have stated, this is bipartisan legislation. It doesn't just include Republican priorities; it includes Democratic priorities as well. For example, this legislation establishes grant programs to help fund the construction of electric vehicle charging stations and infrastructure for other alternative fuel vehicles, such as natural gas. This provision has been a priority for several Senators, including for Ranking Member Carper.
My priority is to make sure these vehicles are actually contributing to the maintenance of our roads. With a rapidly growing electric vehicle market, it is necessary to make sure drivers of these alternative fuel vehicles are contributing to road maintenance. Nearly every automaker is ramping up electric vehicle production. Right now, none of these vehicles pay to maintain America's roads. How can that be? The highway trust fund is funded through fuel taxes. Because they don't buy gasoline, these vehicles simply do not contribute. Yet electric vehicles do as much damage to our highways as do traditional gas-powered vehicles. Everyone who drives on our Nation's roads should contribute to the cost of road maintenance.
Our bill is bipartisan, substantial, and needs to be paid for. As the Presiding Officer knows, the Committee on Environment and Public Works doesn't have jurisdiction over revenues for the highway bill. Ranking Member Carper and I are going to work closely with Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Ron Wyden to responsibly pay for this legislation.
In the process of writing this legislation, we have received extensive feedback from experts from our home States and from other Senators. The bill has already received broad support from groups like the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Highway Users Alliance, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the American Council of Engineering Companies, the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, the North American Concrete Alliance, and many more.
We have planned to mark up America's Transportation Infrastructure Act this week. The business meeting will be a great opportunity in which to strengthen the legislation and move this important process forward. I am thankful to Ranking Member Carper and to all of the members of our committee for working with me on this important piece of legislation. America's Transportation Infrastructure Act will grow the Nation's economy, will improve the safety of our roads, and will enhance the quality of life for the American people.
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