Sam Graves

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Madam Speaker, I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Puerto Rico (Miss Gonzalez-Colon).

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I would like to lend my support for the gentleman's thank-yous for the staff. We all know that staff works very, very hard on these pieces of legislation, and they put in a tremendous amount of time and effort, regardless of which side that they happen to be on. Madam Speaker, I want to continue to note how much of a missed opportunity that this is and this was. I support this amendment, but unfortunately, it doesn't fix the overall bill for it to make really too much of a difference. The sad thing is, is we know we could have come together and written an infrastructure bill that would easily gain bipartisan support, which it needs to become law. In 2 weeks, the T&I Committee plans to mark up the bipartisan Water Resources Act, and I hope and I expect that it will pass. It is bipartisan at this point because it is a bill that both sides continue to develop together. We have worked together on it. That bipartisan process stands in stark contrast to the process that has been used today. The water resources bill absolutely has a chance of becoming law, whereas this $1.5 trillion wish list won't go anywhere after today. I congratulate my Republican colleagues for their work on these particular amendments, and I would urge Members to support this amendment. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Hice).

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to this en bloc amendment, and I am, frankly, embarrassed by the process. I am willing to bet that everyone who sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is proud of its track record of working across the aisle to get things done. That is the proven track record for success for getting bills actually signed into law, but that is not how our committee has operated during the process on this particular piece of legislation. If you choose to operate and move legislation in this manner, you are going to get nothing accomplished; you are not going to get any bill signed into law. The only thing you are going to get out of this process is going to be a press release, and that is it. This is a sham process, and dusting this massive bill with a few amendments that Republicans support doesn't make it a bipartisan process or a bipartisan product. When the majority is ready to work across the aisle on responsible legislation, we will continue to stand at the ready to work with them. But I can't vote for this en bloc package, and I cannot vote for the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer amendments en bloc printed in part G.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, although I support this amendment, I want to, again, note my continued disappointment in this overall process. More than once, I faulted the majority's one-sided committee markup of H.R. 2, but at least we were given time to consider 165 Republican amendments, although 112 were ultimately rejected and mostly through en bloc. But now the majority wants to further stifle consideration of minority amendments by giving us a scant eight Republican amendments out of nearly 400 that were filed. We weren't even given the courtesy to choose. In 2015, if everyone remembers, and for those who weren't here, when the House considered the last surface transportation law, the FAST Act, there were more Democrat-led amendments--remember, Republicans were in the majority. There were more Democrat-led amendments that were agreed to than there were Republican-led amendments that were made in order for today's debate. Of course, the FAST Act was a bill that was developed at that time by both the majority and the minority, which is a stark difference from the majority's bill that we are discussing today. In fact, I remember the Big Four agreement. If the chairmen of both the subcommittee and the full committee and the ranking members of both the subcommittee and full committee, if one of us didn't agree on a provision, then it wasn't included. It was as simple as that. Today could have been a great day for all of us, and we could be approving a bill that all of us could be proud of. Instead, we are left with a bill and a process that shreds one of the only bipartisan issues left in Congress. It just shreds it to pieces. I can answer the gentlewoman who managed the last section of the bill, the financial services section. She said: I don't understand why everybody is so disappointed in this. Mr. Speaker, because it is a failure. An absolute failure is what this bill is. And it is not going anywhere, absolutely not going anywhere. Mr. Speaker, I continue to oppose this partisan process, but I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Madam Speaker, none of what we do here would happen without countless hours of staff work. I especially want to thank the following members of my own staff, all of whom have worked tirelessly on this bill: Paul Sass, Jack Ruddy, Corey Cooke, Tara Hupman, Justin Harclerode, Abigail Camp, Nick Christensen, Jamie Hopkins, Tyler Micheletti, Shawn Bloch, Michael Falencki. Cheryle Tucker, Trey McKenzie, Victor Sarmiento, Drew Feeley, Melissa Beaumont, Johanna Hardy, Ian Bennitt, Jon Pawlow, Holly Woodruff Lyons, T. Hunter Presti, John Rayfield. I also want to thank the Democratic Committee staff for their work on this bill. Finally, I want to thank the Office of Legislative Counsel, especially Karen Anderson and Robert Casturo, for their long hours and hard work in drafting the bill before us, as well as the majority of amendments offered both at our markup and at Rules Committee. Their professionalism and skill are always appreciated, and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman).

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Miller).

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell).

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), the ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the surface transportation law expires in just a few months, and States and workers in transportation businesses are already facing some uncertainly over the next two construction seasons due to COVID-19. This bill is going to lead to greater uncertainty by proposing a seismic shift to our transportation programs by moving us farther away from a long-term bill. You know, I fought for a seat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee because of its track record of working across the aisle to legislate and get things done. But what we are doing today is not legislating. We held a partisan markup in which 112 Republican amendments were rejected, and afterwards, the Speaker essentially amended it again outside of regular order, by airdropping another $1 trillion of new provisions in the middle of the night, in addition to the provisions that never went through any committee process. Several of the added provisions upended previous bipartisan agreements. So here we are now considering another set of 45 amendments en bloc, and the majority isn't even giving enough time to allow 1 minute of debate for each amendment. This isn't a serious deliberative legislative attempt, which is sad considering just how serious and important it is that we address our Nation's infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).