Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the chairman and ranking member for their ability and, for that matter, all my colleagues on the committee for our ability to be able to work together and come up with what I think is a truly good bill.

I rise in support of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act.

The bill reauthorizes programs within the Federal Highway Administration and provides much-needed investments in our Nation's highways and bridges.

It also focuses existing funding to create a Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects program for large-scale projects while making a large number of reforms that will ensure our transportation dollars are put to good use.

These include streamlining the environmental review and permitting process, converting the Surface Transportation Program to a block grant program, maximizing the flexibility for States and local governments, increasing the amount of funding that is distributed to local governments, expanding funding for rural bridges or those bridges that are off the National Highway System, increasing transparency regarding how Federal highway dollars are being spent, increasing the focus on safety programs particularly of rural roads, and encouraging the installation of vehicle-to-infrastructure equipment designed to reduce congestion and improve safety on our roads.

This legislation also reauthorizes Federal public transportation programs and implements reforms that are going to ensure transit systems are safer and more efficient.

The safety of our transportation system must always be at the top of our priority list. By giving States the flexibility to focus on the safety needs unique to each community, we can allow them to take advantage of new technologies that are going to reduce accidents and roadway fatalities across this country. We can maintain a focus on safety without imposing undue and duplicative regulatory burdens on States.

This bill requires the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to review regulations every 5 years to ensure they are current, consistent, and uniformly enforced, allowing us to focus on policies that save lives and abandon those that do not. It also requires FMCSA to look into the effects of raising minimum insurance standards for truck and bus drivers.

I am proud to have been a part of the development of this bipartisan bill. I look forward to moving forward and going to conference with the Senate.

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Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member DeFazio, Congressman Walden, Congresswoman Herrera Beutler, Congressman Blumenauer, and others who worked to get to a point where we all could come to common agreement on this.

The chairman included in this bill an important program called the Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects program. This program establishes a competitive grant opportunity for States, for metropolitan planning organizations, and for local governments to the tune of over $740 million annually.

Mr. Chairman, this recognizes the fact that we have massive needs in transportation infrastructure that remain unaddressed. In my home city of Baton Rouge, you can see right here on this poster board, Mr. Chairman, that, for a midsized city, we have the worst traffic in the Nation. This is a snapshot of Google Maps taken just a few hours ago showing all the extraordinary traffic.

Right here is one place in the Nation where the interstate going from California to Florida drops down to one lane. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it is all red and shows extraordinarily backed-up traffic. An average of 47 hours a year folks from this region sit in traffic.

What this amendment does is it actually provides criteria for the United States Department of Transportation to consider when awarding grants under this competitive program. One of the criteria is ensuring mobility for addressing bottlenecks like this in substandard interstate systems to ensure the flow of traffic, to give back those 47 hours to the folks from the capital region of Louisiana so they can spend time with their families, so they can spend more time at work, so they can be more productive citizens, and so we can have lower emissions.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio for working with us on this amendment. I urge adoption of this amendment.

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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the chairman and ranking member for their ability and, for that matter, all my colleagues on the committee for our ability to be able to work together and come up with what I think is a truly good bill.

I rise in support of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act.

The bill reauthorizes programs within the Federal Highway Administration and provides much-needed investments in our Nation's highways and bridges.

It also focuses existing funding to create a Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects program for large-scale projects while making a large number of reforms that will ensure our transportation dollars are put to good use.

These include streamlining the environmental review and permitting process, converting the Surface Transportation Program to a block grant program, maximizing the flexibility for States and local governments, increasing the amount of funding that is distributed to local governments, expanding funding for rural bridges or those bridges that are off the National Highway System, increasing transparency regarding how Federal highway dollars are being spent, increasing the focus on safety programs particularly of rural roads, and encouraging the installation of vehicle-to-infrastructure equipment designed to reduce congestion and improve safety on our roads.

This legislation also reauthorizes Federal public transportation programs and implements reforms that are going to ensure transit systems are safer and more efficient.

The safety of our transportation system must always be at the top of our priority list. By giving States the flexibility to focus on the safety needs unique to each community, we can allow them to take advantage of new technologies that are going to reduce accidents and roadway fatalities across this country. We can maintain a focus on safety without imposing undue and duplicative regulatory burdens on States.

This bill requires the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to review regulations every 5 years to ensure they are current, consistent, and uniformly enforced, allowing us to focus on policies that save lives and abandon those that do not. It also requires FMCSA to look into the effects of raising minimum insurance standards for truck and bus drivers.

I am proud to have been a part of the development of this bipartisan bill. I look forward to moving forward and going to conference with the Senate.

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