The Highway Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I appreciate the chairman and the
ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee pointing
out that the actual underlying authorization language in this
legislation has been public information since June 24--June 24. The
only thing that is a little different about this underlying bill--it is
not as if this were air-dropped out of heaven, and it showed up on
people's desks--is that Senator Hatch, the chairman of the Committee on
Finance, and other committee chairmen on the commerce committee, EPW,
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have come up
with a group of pay-fors to figure a way to pay for 3 years now of this
underlying 6-year bill.

So I think it is absolutely accurate to say that the good work being
done by the Environment and Public Works Committee to pass a 6-year
bill will be done when this bill is passed, but we have only been able
to agree on 3 years of pay-fors. I wish we could have gone longer, but
that is not bad considering our recent record with these temporary
patches, which I agree is a terrible way to do business.

So I congratulate the Senator from California and those who have
worked to make this bill as good as it is, but I want to make another
point. There are others who are arguing: Well, we shouldn't be doing
this. We ought to be passing a temporary patch, and then we should be
doing international tax reform and trying to come up with some
additional revenue out of that process that will pay for a 6-year bill.
Well, the fact of the matter is that nothing we will do with this bill
precludes that good work from going forward.

As a matter of fact, after 3 years of paying for this bill, at some
point we are going to have to find a way to recharge the bill in order
to complete the work that was first started in the underlying 6-year
bill. So I don't want anybody to be under a misconception, because I
think you might if you didn't know the context of thinking that all of
a sudden this 1,000-page bill appeared on people's desks, and they do
not know where it came from, and they do not know anything about its
provenance or what it will actually do. The truth is very, very
different.

It is important, and I respect the fact, as the Senator from
California has made the point, that people do need to get comfortable
with the paperwork. But what we have tried to do is to come up with
credible ways to pay for the bill that actually represents a consensus
to pay for 3 years rather than this idea of a 6-month patch and hoping
that somehow we will come up with the money in December for a 6-year
bill.

So while I regret this failed cloture vote, this bill does represent
a significant step forward, and I am encouraged by what I have seen in
terms of the bipartisan cooperation that allowed us to make progress on
a number of contentious matters so far this year, and I thank the
minority whip for his good work on this as well.

We passed an education bill. We passed trade promotion authority. It
was not universally popular on both sides, but this was a priority for
the President and I think something that represents a step forward for
our economy, opening markets for the things we raise and grow and the
things we make in this country.

We have done a number of important things that I hope begin to regain
the public's trust and confidence that we are actually able to function
and that even though we have very different ideas about how to get to a
conclusion, we can actually find common ground and make some progress.

In my State in particular--Texas being a large State--the Texas A
Transportation Institute estimates that by the year 2020, 8.4 billion
hours will be spent waiting in traffic--8.4 billion hours. Of course,
that also means that 4 billion gallons of gas will be wasted in the
process. Imagine the pollution, not to mention the heartburn associated
with congestion on our highways and roadways.

We are, thank goodness, a fast-growing State relative to the rest of
the country. We are a big State. We need the transportation
infrastructure to keep our economy moving and to create jobs and
economic growth.

So I am confident we can work in a bipartisan manner to address what
I hope is just a temporary obstacle and avoid these patches that kick
the can down the road and provide no predictability or planning ability
so these long-term projects can be initiated and completed.

I would just point out the fact that Texas has not waited on the
Federal Government in order to deal with its transportation needs. Last
November, by an overwhelming 4-to-1 margin, Texans approved a ballot
initiative that provided an additional $1.7 billion to upgrade and
maintain our transportation network. So I congratulate our leaders at
the State level who have taken the initiative to begin to make that
downpayment on upgrading and maintaining our transportation network,
but estimates are we need as much as $5 billion in order to do that. So
this represents just a downpayment. We need to pass the Federal highway
bill in order to complete our work.

As I pointed out, our State has currently about 27 million people. By
2040, it is estimated to reach as many as 45 million people. So we need
this infrastructure, but we are not alone. We are not unique in that
sense. Every State needs transportation infrastructure to keep people
and goods moving in order to continue to grow our economy because a
growing economy creates jobs and opportunity, and the one thing we need
in this country is a growing economy.

Last year, in 2014, the Texas economy grew at 5.2 percent. The U.S.
economy grew at 2.2 percent. That is why, because of that 3-point
differential, we have created more jobs in Texas--or seen jobs created
by the private sector, I should say--than anywhere else in the country.
If we fail to pass a multiyear transportation bill, if we somehow
decide to shoot ourselves in the foot and fail in this important
effort, we will have only ourselves to blame, and we will be
contributing to the problem rather than contributing to the solution.

The resources provided for in this legislation will help relieve
urban congestion, upgrade rural routes, and improve the overall safety
and efficiency of our highways. It is something our friends across the
aisle just a few short weeks ago said they wanted. They said they were
worried about this impending deadline coming up where we needed to do
something, and they were predicting that perhaps we would just have
another patch. They called for a longer term highway bill. So I would
urge our colleagues to take yes for an answer.

Thanks to the good work done by Chairman Hatch of the Committee on
Finance and a lot of work on a bipartisan basis across the aisle, we
have actually come up with enough money--enough legitimate pay-fors--to
pass a 3-year transportation bill with the prospect, if we can come up
with some additional funds through international tax reform, to
backfill the final 3 years. So nothing here actually precludes that
effort. Nothing cuts that off. This is, I think, part of doing our basic job
as Members of the Congress. It is not particularly attractive
or sexy or interesting, but it is about competence, it is about doing
our job, and it is about putting the American people's interests first.

So I hope by tomorrow our colleagues will have had a chance to
satisfy themselves and understand the pay-fors in this bill,
recognizing that most of this information has been out there in the
public domain for a long, long time. I am not asking them to like it, I
am not asking them to fall in love with the pay-fors, but I am asking
them to let us go forward and to let the Senate be the Senate. Let
people offer their ideas, hopefully get votes on constructive
suggestions, eventually pass this legislation, and send it over to the
House, where I predict, if it comes out of the Senate with a good
strong vote, our friends in the House will take it up and pass it and
send it to the President, and we will have fulfilled our
responsibility.

I yield the floor.

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