uphold the fair housing right and i count on him to push to include housing in the president's infrastructure plan. if the president is going to increase defense by $50 billion and cut a whole host of housing and urban problems i count on this nominee, he promised our committee and he said it in private meetings and public meetings we will hold them accountable. i plan to vote yes. coming up tonight, members of congress on the challenges of funding infrastructure projects. tonight, we join the washington press foundation annual dinner with remarks from tim scott and louisiana congressman cedrick wilson. and later, we hear from the president trump's choice for director of interior design.

>> hearing from top carper, ranking member of the environment and public works committee. and house transportation and infrastructure committee chairman bill shuster. this is 35 minutes. >> let's introduce your first speaker. tom carper, who is the ranking member of the senate environment and public works committee. senator carper is a former five-term congressman from delaware. before joining the senate in 2001, senator carper was elected to delaware's 78th governor. thank you so much for joining us today. [applause] >> do we have any veterans here? if you are a veteran, stand up and receive our applause.

i am a retired navy captain from ohio state. spent 23 years in southeast asia, 18 as a conformation commander until the end of world war ii. there were different parts of the president's speech i appreciated. where is secretary coleman? would you stand up and take a bow. we have the secretary of transportation here. [applause]

>> one of the things was the sacrifice of the service men and women the remains of fallen heroes come through the air force base and we treat them and the families who receive the remains with great dignity. that was one of my favorite parts of the remasrk. he had been to delaware for the transfer of the navy seal chief petty officer and it was stuck in his mind. i want to talk about transportation and use a little bit of what happened last night to be my springboard. one of my favorite things about the u.s. senate is the state of the union and not just because of the speeches we hear and often times they are good. whoever wrote the one for the president didn't write the one he gave during this inauguration

and that is good thing. they have different expectations and before we go down to the house of representatives, we gather a bit, the senators do. it is like a very nice cover dish supper and we have several rooms where they setup tables and we invite our staff with the special guests and if our spouses can't come someone else can. there is a lot of special guests and i invited a woman who is a cancer survivor who was saved by the affordable care act last year and nobody else would provide coverage for her. just before we get together and walk down to go the house of representatives there is a rush to the restrooms. you are going to sit there for a couple hours and everyone wants them to be pleasurable so a bunch of us were in the men's room on the senate floor. it is not a very big room,

either. as we are talking about what we are expecting and we looked over and said i hope we are not at war with canada by midnight. and i set my alarm to wake up at midnight. all clear. jen knows back in delaware i love to do custom calls. i visit all the time and what can we do to help i ask. i love to go to schools and i especially enjoy town hall meetings with kids. they are a lot more pleasurable than town halls fellow colleagues have been hosting. and you know, third, fourth, fifth graders and all the way up to college, and every now and

then one of the kids is an elementary school kid and they will say what do you do? what do you do? and i say well i am a united states senator. and the little girl looked at me and said what do you do? i said you have rules in your school and school bus and at home and she said yes. i said we have rules of the country, they are called laws and i get to help make the rules. i will never forget this one little boy in the room raises his hand and said what else do you do? and i said well, i try to help people. i try to help. i am a big believer in the golden rule. i try to help people. and he said how? and i said one of the best ways you can help people is to make sure they have a job. one way to strengthen families is to make sure there is one,

and hopefully if needed, two breadwinners. if you have that going for you the rest is pretty easy. the rest is pretty easy. as jennifer knows and others who have heard me speak before i love lincoln and a couple nights ago were in session all night and at 10:00 at night i wanted to go for a run. i love to workout every day. run, licft weights or workout. i had time to run and i went out on this cold wendy night and ran down to the lincoln memorial. i got down there about 10:30, it was really windy, but the moon was out and you could see the stars and the lights reflecting on the reflecting pond. i ran up the steps of the lincoln memorial and there is lincoln looking across the way at the washington monument and

the capitol -- how many of you have been there? how many at 10:30 at night by yourself on a cold, windy night? i read on the walls the address and his inaugural address and all the words. i stood right in front of the statue and he was looking up toward the capitol and toward the washington monument and so was i. i said a few things to him. and he didn't speak back but one of the questions i went to ask a long, long time ago was what is your role of government and he said the role of government is to do for the people what you cannot do for himself. the role of the government is to do for the people who can not do themselves. that is a great thing to remember. one of things we do in government, one of the most important things, is create an

environment for job creation and job preservation. i think one of the most important thing we do in government is to help create a nurturing environment for job creation. when i was the governor in delaware more jobs were created in that 8-year period. we tried to create a nurturing environment for job creation. a big piece of that is high schools, technical schools, community colleges, and being competitive as a nation. public safety is a big deal. access to clean water and air and access to foreign marks, protection of intellectual property and against cyber attacks. one thing i think we have consensus in the congress is with respect to infrastructure

which is a good thing because as, you know, i predict our transportation infrastructure needs help and has needed it for a long time. we passed the fast act and provided funding i thought between me and you shamefully. we were able to limp along but it didn't come close to solving the problems but it is better than shutting down and not having any money. when mr. trump spoke last night about infrastructure and how we need to do more one of the things in terms of paying he mentioned we want to make sure we raise money to do these projects. and public-private partnerships. rebecca, are you here? give rebecca a nice round of applause.

you know rebecca from our days. she works hard for the money. so hard. but she is on the public committee and sort of like a point person on infrastructure. she is reminding me on the way over here that over the last 30 years there have been 30 publ public-private partnerships thad that the led to creation of improvements. there is good stuff that can be done but to say that is the major way of paying for this stuff? probably not. probably not. the issue here we can all think about is stuff we would like to be able to do to talk about how bad things and how many hours we spend in traffic and how much repair work has to be done on vehicles. i am going to talk about the stuff nobody wants to every talk about and that is how we pay for it. how do we pay for it? you have all heard the old saying there is no silver bullet. there is no silver bullet and i

feel that way with respect to how to pay for this. infrastructure is a particular expense. but also on the airport and port side needs help as well. clean water, wastewater treatment needs help too. but for a long, long time we have had the use of the concept and idea of the people and the businesses who use transportation and infrastructure to help pay for. we have been doing that for a long, long time. there is a lot that is done in this country to actually pay for it. stuff we all know we need. our republican friends, if they vote for anything that looks like a tax or a user fee they get branded as violating the no-tax claims and they invite primaries who have the most radical people showing up on the democratic or republican side and you can lose a primary because you took a potential

position saying you will fund the transportation infrastructure. it is hard for folks to do that. i will mention a couple ideas that might be worth mentioning. i think democrats on our side, and the senate a couple weeks ago proposed an infrastructure package. they were shot original details of paying for it but i want to mention a couple rights. we can come up with better ideas of working together. one of the ideas is in some cases it works better if you can toll. our friends in the trucking industry don't like the tolls on the existing roads and bridges but i think they are okay with construction. america trucking organizations work hard lobby and are good at working the house and senate members. i was amazed trying to get an

increase in the gas diesel tax. many of them have their own ideas of how we might move away from what is perceived to be a tax at the pump and move upstream if you will posted. i think there is probably something we can do there. it might actually give political cover to folks who are not as politically foolish as i am for talking about user fees a whole lot. but one of the ideas i think might survive that is former governor of ohio, and i suggested to the commission, which they adopted, four cents a year for four years. and i think indexing could be a good way to help on the user fees. if we do nothing else but for the federal and diesel gas tax could be raised up. that would be good. any of --ee are open for

business on april 1st. people didn't like this and we haven't had backups since going. i think the ability to do tolling is better than -- do we have anybody from west virginia? warren buckley who is one of my great, great grandfathers and as a little kid, we would drive around the west virginia turnpike and we would go 12-13 miles and stop and reach into

our pockets and find a quarter and drop it into a bucket. we did it again and again and it gets us away from all that. i think the idea of giving the states more would be part of it it. a user fee approach could be used along with public-private partnership. another idea is we have a lot of companies in this country, last three years said, multinational companies paying taxes on 35%. and the president obama proposed

re-patriati re-patriotion. and i think we need a baseload for funding for transportation. i think the problem with that is it is not base load. it is one time and a big one time. i can figure any number of projects we would help take the money and leverage other number money from the locals and private sector and that would be a good thing. last thing i want to mention. i am a big car affection and within six months within the great recession it was painful. 4,000 jobs were gone just like

that. but one of the cars have a lot of interest in is the chevrolet volt. the chevrolet bolt has the ability to run on batteries for 40 miles and the ability to run on gas. anybody every right in a volt? detroit auto show this year had the award for the car this year and the chevrolet bolt won. it uses battery and can go about 200 miles. ....

the stipulation. let's see if we can get the states to do some corroboration and the laboratories of democracy. and jen: and and about others involved where the epicenter of this on the east coast. to see with what we can come up with. -- i call it i love music by the way. i call it rock 'n' roll. rock 'n' roll. that's good.

i think we might be onto something here. but we can develop autonomous vehicles that can drive themselves across the country maybe we can figure out how to do this in a way that would generate on the federal state and local level. books and states new jersey and pennsylvania last year, wyoming they voted for substantial increases -- somebody actually sat down and looked at how, the legislators who voted for the increases said how do they do in the reelections? and guess what? overwhelmingly they one. and people, they were unable to say this is what it means in our district, our town.

and i know it can be -- but to be honest with you. the idea to somehow enable members to say i voted for increase. here is what we are getting for that money in our county, our state. this is in our city. and delaware, we have a lot of press conferences. a lot of the money is federal. where it comes from. i didn't know they were going to get earmarks back but somehow for folks to get credit. let me close with this i want to thank you all. i was born in west virginia, grew up in virginia.

i was in the navy and really delaware is a state that works. we communicate, compromise and corroborate. it works pretty well for us. it worked pretty well for the nation. and then in the last couple of months people are fearful. i hope with the president said last night was really from his heart. because the rewards -- the words were right. people may not believe what you say, they will believe what you do. people may not believe what you say but they believe what you do. one of the things, undergrad and i know a little bit about budgeting and balance budgets.

but i was troubled last night by what the president called for, -- the infrastructure program. great law. the wall for mexico is about 25 billion. you're not going to believe this. we spend more in this country on defense not by one or two countries combined with three or four countries combined. or four, five, six or seven countries combined.we spend more money than the next 10 nations combined. 10 nations combined. two weeks ago the government accountability act $400 billion in cost.

$400 billion. in the department of defense actually has clean financials. never had one in 67 years. and the ability to manage their finances. we voted for a lot of money in that area. let me close with this. when people say i'm fearful for the future of my country this is what i say. the chinese symbol for danger is a chinese symbol for opportunity. in adversity lies opportunity. and 150 years ago we fought a civil war in this country. hundreds of thousands of people died. brother against brother, family against family. our president was assassinated and his successor was reached. somehow we got through all of that. and i think we can get through

this. -- three branches of government. it works pretty well for 200 years. keep in mind communicate, compromise and corroborate. if we keep those in mind will be all right. god bless you, thank you so much. [applause] >> i almost walked away with this. [laughter] but i would leave my prepared remarks. [laughter] come cs in delaware. >> senator, thank you so much for everything you do and all of the work that you do. i want to welcome house transportation infrastructure committee chairman bill schuster. chairman schuster is a true

champion of transportation working to enact the ãamong other legislative accomplishes. he served on house transportation infrastructure committee since coming to congress in 2001. he previously served as chairman of the subcommittee on railroads, pipelines and hazardous materials and as chairman of the subcommittee on public buildings and emergency management. as chairman of the committee he will have a huge role in helping the administration and the house leadership navigate transportation and policy. please welcome to the podium, chairman schuster. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is great to be here this morning. unlike the president last night i'm going completely off script. and i will start by saying i thought the president did a fantastic job last night. we were high-fiving each other

and the whole speech was great. but of course folks in this room and myself, he spoke about infrastructure again. i like to tell people, this is the first president that i can find that said in his inaugural address he used the word infrastructure. so this prison is committed to it, i know the folks in this room are committed to it. thank you for having here. i should have started off with that. my secretary is here. i heard leslie richards is sitting up at there. leslie raised her hand. there she is. [applause] i want to make sure that the ãi heard the secretary mention his secretary a couple of times so i figured i better do the same. i have some projects in my history that need attention. leslie and i on different sides of the political aisle but when it comes to transportation, there is not much between us.

it is like building america's infrastructure and we have a tremendous need out there. again, the president last night said it. he said again, i've been down to the white house twice in the last two weeks. small meetings with the president. of course, i bring up infrastructure every chance i get.and again, this president is a builder. he knows what it takes to get a project done.there is a great example in pennsylvania avenue the post office building. the trump hotel, trump organization got the bid. before -- it will be under budget and that is the kind of thing this president will get done. and let me just focus on what we need to do to move forward with infrastructure. the presidents as $1 trillion. it will not be $1 trillion coming out of washington d.c.. there obviously has to be more

money coming up but how do we get there, first in the state where the other dollars are coming from. there are billions and billions of dollars out there today. private sector dollars. that are going to be spent. the secretary and i just spoke about to pipeline projects. not the dakota pipeline and not the -- but they are two pipelines in pennsylvania. $4 billion of private investment.in the corps of engineers and other government agencies are holding up these projects. if the core signs off we get a couple of their people to agree, we are talking about $4 billion in private investors just in pennsylvania and a couple of other states. i was down in florida, there is $1.5 billion project waiting on the court to sign off. there is a $2 billion project in california waiting for it not federal dollars but a loan. for a portion. so there are billions and

billions of dollars of private sector money and the president is talking about that.and these are things i bring up to him every single chance i get. has a great policy. i cannot say how pleased i am that the secretary of transportation, she is outstanding. when the white house was talking to me about what is the criteria for a good secretary of transportation for any secretary, it is number one has the experience to run something big and she has done that. she ran the labor department for eight years under president bush. no the transportation issues, know the issues of the department and her work as deputy secretary and transportation under the first president bush and very politically smart. she has all of those things. she has all of those qualifications. some of us are getting a little frustrated because on her team, eating players on the football field. >> we are taking up for the washington press club and their dinner. we have tim scott