Highway Bill Will Enable Texas to Upgrade and Maintain Transportation Network

In remarks on the Senate floor yesterday, I spoke about the need to pass a bipartisan, long-term highway funding bill. 

Texas has not waited on the federal government in order to deal with its transportation needs. Last November, by an overwhelming 4-1 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 down payment on upgrading and maintaining our transportation network. But estimates are that we need as much as $5 billion in order to do that, so this represents just a down payment. So we need to pass the federal highway bill in order to complete our work.

Every state needs the 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 if we fail to pass a multi-year transportation bill, if we somehow decide to shoot ourselves in the foot here 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. But 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.