Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson along with other Senior Members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today joined with more than 80 Members of the House of Representatives to introduce the bipartisan job-creating Senate transportation bill that passed last week by a vote of 74 to 22 and called on House Republicans to abandon their partisan transportation bill and bring the Senate bill up for immediate consideration.
The Members introduced the Senate’s bipartisan “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21)” (H.R 14), to move our Nation forward and create desperately needed jobs. The surface transportation authorization bill is by far the biggest jobs legislation Congress will consider this year. If House Republican leaders prevent the Senate bill from reaching the President before the March 31st expiration of highway program funding, Republicans will be responsible for devastating job losses across the Nation.
Unlike the House bill, which slashes funding and destroys 550,000 jobs, MAP-21 continues current funding levels, sustaining approximately 1.9 million family-wage American jobs. Under the Senate bill, the States will receive $3.8 billion more in highway construction funding than the House bill over the course of the next two years.
“The Senate passed a bipartisan transportation bill by an overwhelming majority. Instead of taking it up immediately, the House Republican leadership is using it as a bargaining chip to get the fanatical transportation devolutionists in line to support their job-killing transportation bill H.R. 7,” said U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR), top Democrat on the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. “The Senate bill isn’t perfect, but it is vastly superior to their House alternative. House leaders must stop with the pointless short term political posturing, pass the bipartisan Senate transportation bill, put millions of Americans back to work, rebuild the crumbling infrastructure in this country, and improve our nation’s economic competitiveness.”
At a time when 50 percent of our roads are in disrepair, 70,000 bridges are structurally deficient, and transit ridership was up a staggering 235 million trips last year, the Senate bill provides critical infrastructure upgrades in all 50 States. The Senate transportation bill maintains investments for highways and public transportation, consolidates and streamlines highway programs, strengthens safety, establishes a national freight program, and institutes performance measures and improves accountability for transportation infrastructure investments.
The Senate bill eliminates many of the gaping loopholes in current law “Buy America” requirements – loopholes that are being exploited by foreign competitors, like China, who are stealing American jobs. MAP-21 includes critical elements of Rahall’s “Invest in American Jobs Act of 2011” (H.R. 3533), and eliminates these loopholes to give American workers a fair shot.
