Transportation-HUD Appropriations Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Madam President, this whole process has been moved forward by the leadership of Chairman Collins. She and her staff have done an extraordinary job of taking the additional resources made available by the budget agreement and constructively focusing them towards addressing important policies in transportation and housing in the United States.

As Chairman Collins discussed, we have about nine amendments--bipartisan amendments--that have been agreed to that focus on housing and transportation issues exclusively. These amendments also display the give-and-take and back-and-forth that is necessary, the compromise that is necessary. One example is the amendment that Senator Cornyn, along with Senator Harry Reid, proposed that dealt with small airports throughout the United States.

Those are the types of issues that should be the focal point of our deliberations on the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, and that is what we have tried to do. Frankly, under Senator Collins' leadership, we were moving forward, but we have run into a bit of an impasse. We are going to continue to work because it is critical to the country that we rebuild our infrastructure and make sure that we have adequate, affordable housing, which is key to so many things--to having a job, to holding a job, to children being in a school for the whole year and not moving from school to school. All of these are tied directly to our efforts here today.

I again compliment the chairman for her extraordinary efforts. The staffs have done a superb job. We will continue to work. Our objective is to get a bill done and move forward in the process. Unfortunately, we have hit this bump, but we are still going down the road.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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