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a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from arizona. ms. sinema: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. sinema: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. sinema: thank you. it's my honor and privilege this evening to join with the fellow nine senators of the g10 who have been working together for months now along with an additional 12 qleegz who -- colleagues who together, the 22 of us senators have worked long and hard with each other and with the white house to introduce this evening the bipartisan infrastructure investment and jobs act. we know that this has been a long and sometimes difficult process, but we are proud this evening to announce this legislation and we look forward very much to working with our colleagues in a collaborative and open way over the coming days to work through this historic investment in infrastructure in our country and to come agreement in the

united states senate to move forward with this historic piece of legislation. now i know many of my colleagues will talk about some of the virtues of the legislation and the great things it will do for the states that we all are proud to represent. the states that all of us ?oshes represent across this -- senators represent across this country. but what i would like to direct pi remarks this evening are not the details of this legislative text, though they are significant and i think they are very meaningful and will have an impact on the daily lives of americans. what i'd like to speak about is the very process. i know it has been difficult and i know it has been long. and what i'm proud to say is that is what our forefathers intended when they created a system of government that required republicans and democrats to come together in a coequal branch of government and work with each other and with the administration to find legislation and solutions that meet the needs of our country, individuals, families, companies, communities.

it is difficult. it is time consuming. and it is exactly what our country insisted and demands of us every single day. to take the time to work with each other, to find common ground, to compromise, and to be willing to work with each other to give a little to get a little in order to achieve what's right and what's best for the american people. i think the process we are embarking on this evening as we soon will join together with our colleagues of both political parties representing every state across the country is an important one. and it sends a message to the individuals across this country and indeed to individuals across this world that the united states government can work. it is difficult. it is time consuming. it can be hard. but this very process of finding bipartisan compromise and working together to overcome obstacles, to achieve the objectives that the american people are depending upon us to do is the very heart and the

very core why each of us serve in this government. and i for one in addition to being tired, i for one am incredibly proud of this process. it is why i ran for office. and i believe it is why we've all run for office. to work together, to overcome differences, to find solutions, and to make a difference in the lives of the american people. as we will see in the coming days, as we hear from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle offering amendments and adjustments to this legislation and ultimately i believe passing this legislation out of the senate with a strong bipartisan record, we will continue to once again demonstrate to our country and to the world that we can indeed do our jobs. that we can legislate, that we can work together, and that we can put aside our own political differences for the greater good of our country. thank you, mr. president. mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i concur with the comments of my colleague from arizona.

she put it well. this is an important bill because it takes our aging and outdated infrastructure in this country and modernizes it. that's good for everybody. it's good for the truck driver who can leave home knowing he's going to be safer on our broadz and bridges. -- roads and bridges. it's good for the mom who commutes to work and is sick of waiting in rush hour traffic on the way to work and on the way back because she'd rather spend more time with her kids. it's good for the factory worker in ohio who makes things that need to be transported. we make tanks in ohio. we make cars in ohio. we make washing machines. they go all over the world. our ports, our land ports, our sea ports are inefficient and backed up. it's good for our consumers waiting for products all over the world because our ports are backed up. our infrastructure is way behind. we'll talk more about that the next couple of days with specific data as to how we've fallen behind, how we're not competitive anymore, how china has passed us in terms of infrastructure. they spend four times more than

we do because they get it. this helps make the economy more efficient, more pructive and -- productive and therefore it actually returns investment to the american people. we're also going to hear about how it's not going to increase inflation like some of the other spending being talked about around here partly because it's long-term spending for capital assets. it's spending that's going to add to the supply side meaning it's actually going to be counterinflationary and create more jobs. we'll hear about all that. one thing i do want to make sure that we hear about tonight is the fact that this process of starting from the center out has worked. people talked about infrastructure in this city forever. president trump had a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package. ours is $550 billion, by the way. 5% of his was paid for. ours is paid for. we made a commitment early on we were going to do two things. one, we're going to focus on core infrastructure so when president biden introduced a $2.65 trillion bill, we said --

and called it infrastructure, we said there is a he good stuff in there but let's pull out the good stuff, the core infrastructure because a lot had nothing to do with infrastructure. second we said we're not going to do it by raising taxes. we're not going to hurt the american worker more and make america less competitive. we'll do just the opposite. we kept to those two principles. i'm so proud of that that tonight we can say the substitute amendment is going to be offered and it's going to keep to that commitment, $550 billion, no new tax, core infrastructure only. and it's great for the american people. i want to thank a few people who got us here. who are going to be able to over the next few days to tell us in great detail the role they played because it was significant on every one of their parts. first senator sinema. she's been the one who kept us on track. that's been very important. but also to my colleagues who are here on the floor, senator susan collins, senator lisa murkowski, senator mitt romney, senator bill cassidy.

my republican colleagues we've worked with over the last four months and haij huge contributions. i want to thank the white house for their work with us because they said early on, okay, we want to do this, too, in a bipartisan way. we said okay if you're serious, we do, too. and sure enough we negotiated. it was tough. we had a lot of differences. but we were able to get to this point tonight. just as important is the group on the other side of the aisle who made this work. and i see my colleague senator manchin here. i see senator warner here who looks like he really wants to speak. i see senator shaheen who is for speak and i see senator tester wandering around here somewhere. there are folks on the side of g10 and a much bigger group. to my colleagues who also helped in the 22 working groups we had putting this together and did such a great job, lindsey burr, thom tillis, jerry moran, chris coons, maggie hassan, michely, angus king, 11 democrats, 11

republicans. and then to my friends who took us over the top the other night on the first vote we had on this. i appreciate them because they weren't involved as much on the details but they know this is the right thing for the country and many of them did help to get us where we were. kevin cramer. mike crapo. mitch mcconnell, roy glunts, chuck grassley, jim risch. folks, we wouldn't be here without every one of them. we thank all of the folks who put so much time and effort into this and mostly we got to thank our staff because none of us would be here standing tonight doing this if we didn't have staff who have been working their heart out, standing til midnight ensuring every single thing in this bill has been looked over carefully to make sure we got it right and we're getting it right tonight for the american people, for our economy, and for the future of our great country. mr. president, i yield to my colleague from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, i also want to first of all thank all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. senator sinema and senator

portman have taken the lead. i want to thank them both. senator portman for taking at least 40 seconds of my time by enumerating all of our colleagues who were part of this effort. i also want to thank the staff and acknowledge as he did the incredibly important role the white house played. at some point in this process, the white house realized that they couldn't just support this initiative but they actually had to own it. and they were intimately involved in all the details, something i know they'll share with all my democrat colleagues. i want to thank the majority leader. he has given us the time we need to get here, to get a -- close to 3,000-page bill to this floor this comprehensive. i know it's taken a little more time than maybe all of us thought. but the fact is we've been talking about this for 30 years under democrats, republicans, both plit cal parties -- political parties at various times over the last 30 years. senator portman is right, other nations are now investing at a

level much greater than ours. so this record $5050 billion -- $550 billion investment in hard infrastructure over five years has never been done before. as senator manchin often pointed out as we were sometimes feuding and fighting over some of the details, no pothole ever decided it was only going to hit a democrat or a republican. it hits everybody's cars. we all know we've got thousands of bridges that need to be repaired. we all know post covid high speed broadband isn't nice to have. it's a necessity. too many americans go without access to clean drinking water. this legislation will be debated and i hope passed in a strong bipartisan way. we will show our country, we'll show the world, no country around the world can keep up with us when making these kind of investments. i thank my colleagues and yield to my great senator from maine.

ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding -- the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. let me begin my remarks this evening by expressing my appreciation to senators portman and sinema for their extraordinary leadership of our group -- our bipartisan group of ten senators who have labored so hard to bring before the senate the bipartisan infrastructure investment and jobs act. mr. president, this legislation represents the most significant investment in our infrastructure since the construction of the interstate highway system. think about that. for generations, for decades, we have talked about the need to rebuild our roads and our bridges, our airports, our

seaports, our waterways, our water treatment systems, and today to expand high-speed internet access to americans throughout our country, no matter where they live, whether they are in the northern regions of maine or an inner city neighborhood. and, mr. president, that is exactly what this legislation would do. i want to just quickly give an example from my own state of maine. maine has 315 bridges and nearly 1,500 miles of roads that are rated as being in poor condition. now the state of maine will have the funding that will enable it to make major investments in the repair and replacement of if

critical infrastructure. i'm particularly pleased that the legislation includes $65 billion to expand access to broadband, and i want to thank my colleague, senator jeanne shaheen, who worked so closely with me. we were partners in this endeavor, and this is going to make such a difference to students who are doing online courses. to seniors who want access to telemedicine. to individuals who are able to work from home. but none of that is possible without access to high-speed internet services. so, mr. president, i'm very pleased to be part of this group, and i'm also delighted to demonstrate to the american people that we can work across the aisle in a bipartisan way to

achieve real results that matter to the people of this country. thank you, mr. president. and i would yield to the senator from new hampshire. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you very much. i am very proud to be here with the rest of my colleagues to present this bill that will make the biggest investment in infrastructure, as senator collins said so well, since the interstate highway system back in the 1950's, and this is really an extraordinary work product that results from the leadership of senators sinema and portman from the cooperation of everybody on this floor. there were an equal number of democrats and republicans. a number who were not here tonight who have worked on this bill. the work of committee chairs and ranking members in the senate who have done so much to put together underlying bills that we used in moving this forward.

and, of course, all of the staff, from our personal offices, from the appropriations committee, from all of the committees that worked on this bill. as has been said, this is the biggest investment in infrastructure with $550 billion in new spending over the next five years. it builds on annual appropriations. it's an investment in roads and bridges and water and waste water, transit, the electric grid. we've got to do this because right now we are investing less than our competitors, less than china, less than india, less than europe, less than we were spending in the united states in the 1960's. and if we are going to stay competitive, if we are going to provide opportunities for the people in this country, we have got to make these investments. as my partner in broadband said, if kids are going to have an equal opportunity for the future, then they need to have access to high-speed internet.

more important, i think, is the point that all of my colleagues so far have made, and that is that this bill shows that republicans and democrats can work together to address the needs of this country, that our government is not broken, we can make it work if everybody works together. so i know we have a lot of work ahead of us to get this bill through the floor of the senate and then through the house and get the help out to the american people, but i know that in this chamber we are committed to getting that done and to making sure that we make these investments to move the country forward. so thank you, mr. president. i yield to my colleague from alaska, senator murkowski. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president. it is indeed a pleasure to be on the floor, even though it's a little bit late on a sunday evening, but to be here with colleagues that we have -- we have spent probably more time with one another than we have

with our families, our spouses, our roommates, what have you, but we have been working to build a product not only that we are proud to stand behind but a product that i believe the american public will be proud of the work that we have put into this. work that not just this group but again the broader group of 22, and also we recognize the very solid work that come from our committees. we recognize all that was built at the committee level to help kick-start in so many different -- in so many different areas, but also to build the base of much of this infrastructure bill that we have in front of us today. my friend and colleague from west virginia, senator manchin, the chairman of the energy and natural resources committee, when we -- when we started to sit down and focus on what we

were going to do with infrastructure, the necessity for a power piece was important. it was critical to what we were building. and so the committee went to work, put together i think a good product that moved out of the committee on a bipartisan basis, and that served as -- as really the base for the title that is part of this measure, building on the energy act that we moved out of this body last year. so the work that has gone into it has been a collaborative process throughout the way. very much an itterative process as well. but i think we recognize that the good, solid work that has been put into this to date is just really the beginning of bringing in more of the efforts and input from our colleagues from this body, from around the country. when you think about

infrastructure, infrastructure connects us. infrastructure brings us together. and so whether you are from a rural state like mine or from an urban state like the occupant of the chair, when we are able to move safely and efficiently, when we are able to communicate affordably and quickly and efficiently, when we are able to ensure that our systems are all working together, this is what makes us the strong, competitive nation that we are. so extraordinary policy in this product, but the process that has gotten us here this evening is one that, while hard and arduous, as the senator from arizona has noted, this is what we come here to do.

we've come here to do the hard work, to do the necessary work, and tonight we are at that place where we can begin to take up the infrastructure product that we have been working on for months now. and what the country is waiting for and deserves. with that, i turn to my friend and colleague from west virginia. mr. manchin: thank you, senator. mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. manchin: mr. president, i want to thank my colleagues. this has been a most enjoyable venture for the last six to eight weeks. so many people have given up on the senate. they have given up on congress. they have given up on our ability to be able to do the big things. this is big. this is a big deal. i don't care who is looking at it any way they can. it's been said that nothing like this has been done in 30 years. it hasn't. we all talked about it. we all knew it. senator warner said that basically potholes and bridges don't have names. they don't have republican and democratic identification. they hurt us all, and it has. it's something that every

administration for the past four to five administrations knew had to be done, and they didn't, because this is hard. it's not easy. they call us a deliberative body. this is truly what deliberation is about, to come to an agreement. it takes an awful lot of time, a lot of patience, a lot of effort. we did that. and when you think about having majority leader chuck schumer and the leader of the republican party, mitch mcconnell, vote for this piece of legislation, that says a lot about it, that it is needed. the american people are speaking loudly and clear. the polls are overwhelming. whether it's democrat, republican, independent, they could care less. they want their infrastructure repaired. let's rebuild medical. we talk about it a lot. and when you think about this, this is the largest long-term jobs program that we've done, that we've ever done for an awful long time. they talk about basically the economy is soaring now. they figure it's going to taper off and maybe even go down. this will prevent that from

happening. these are great jobs in every city and every part of -- every county and every state in america. great jobs are going to be available for people who want good-paying, high-skilled jobs with benefits. this is the bill that will do it for them. and this will keep us going from five to ten years. not just one year. it's not just a blip on the radar screen and then we're done. this is for five to ten years, and we can continue to build on it. there is only a few things that bring us together as americans, that bring us together as congress that we all gather around. one is the military. i have never seen a military piece of legislation or ndaa that we all didn't rally around and pass. whether democrat or republican. we knew it had to be done for the sake of our country. and infrastructure is the second. i've never seen anything so popular as infrastructure. people say oh, joe, we need it done. and these are people that might be hard-core left or hard-core right. they could care less. they want their infrastructure. they want their roads. they want their children safe on

the buses. they want to be able to travel and communicate. they want internet service. if you live in maine or rural alaska or rural west virginia or new hampshire or virginia or louisiana or utah and also in ohio. wherever you may be, they want it. they want to be able to communicate and compete for the jobs in the 21st century. this is the largest investment in clean drinking water and waste water infrastructure in american history, the largest. it's the largest dedicated bridge investment sips the construction of the interstate highway system. it's the largest investment in clean energy transmission and infrastructure in the history of our country. it's the largest federal investment in passenger rail since the creation of amtrak. think about that. think what i just said. it's the largest we have ever done. this is something. i have always said the best politics is good government. you do something good, we can all take credit for it. i have seen people take credit for things they voted against when it was so good. this is one they can. they can say it's going to be

great, go home, you willen shoi it. i can't tell you also what the deliberative body that we are and the greatest deliberative body in the world. by deliberation, it brings us together. we know each other. we know each other's families. we care about each other. we don't look at each other as democrat or republican. these are my friends, my individual friends that i think basically would have my back at any time of the day and i would have theirs. this is what brings us -- this is what people want. they want to see us work. and i want to thank -- i will thank majority leader chuck schumer. he has been adamant about let's pass this bill. hurry up. he has pushed it a little bit faster sometimes, but it's deliberation. we got through it. but he wanted the bill to happen. i think really -- i think deep down that mitch mcconnell wants the bill, he has voted for it. he wants it, too. we have both leaders pushing for it on both sides of the aisle. this is something that is going to get across the line. i believe really strongly in it. it includes the energy infrastructure act that passed,

which senator murkowski then as the majority -- as the chairman of the energy and natural resources, we worked on together. great piece of legislation. we're talking about energy that's going to be making and keeping america energy independent, but doing it cleaner than any time in the world, anyplace in the world. we're going to be the leader for the world. you can't eliminate your way to a clean environment, but you can innovate your way. that's what this bill has. it has a commitment to research and development that will find basically the -- that will define basically the way that we can clean up the climate which we're all responsible for. so i am very proud to be part of this and proud of all of you, my colleagues. i have worked with you and i think the world of you. this is something we should be proud of. this is a give-and-take proposition. nobody got what they wanted. everybody got what we needed, and that's the most important thing. thank you, mr. president. now i yield to my good friend from louisiana. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: mr. president, i join tonight in the celebration of the significant next step in

this passage of a $550 billion over five-year infrastructure package. with roads and bridges, highways, sewer systems, broadband, flood mitigation, coastal resiliency. mr. president, if our responsibility as senators is to listen to the american people, this bill is a product of hearing their voices. it is a bipartisan package which does not increase taxes but does meet the needs that we have heard of. now, first, let me join others. portman and sinema, they just did a fantastic job of leading this effort. our colleagues, both those here who are speaking but those who are the chair and ranking members of other committees have really guided us tremendously and produced a great work. i'd also like to acknowledge our house colleagues, brian fitzpatrick, josh gottheimer, of the problem solvers caucus who on their side of the chamber have also seen fit to already

endorse our effort. and when they did, it was certainly a strong wind of encouragement for us. but most of all, i thank the american people. the constitution gives congress the responsibility for infrastructure. our duty gives us the responsibility to listen. if you listen to the american people right now, they are concerned about jobs, the economy, safety, quality of life. with this bill, we give voice to their concerns. for example, as regards -- as regards safety, $110 billion for better highways, bridges, and roads. along the way, by the way, you create quite a number of jobs. my state, every state has been affected by flooding. $3.5 billion for flood mitigations. $500 million to make storm brains bigger so that if there is a tremendous rain event, sewer -- sewer systems are better able to handle this. money for sewer systems.

money for broadband. many places in my state do not have high-speed internet. this address -- this addresses my state and every other. quality of life. there are people in my state who on a sunday morning you could drive in 15 minutes where they are going to work, and on a workday, it takes them an hour and a half. that is three hours a day they are away from their family, three hours a day they are not doing something productive, three hours a day of their life which is wasted times the number of days they work in a year. this will improve their quality of life. and by the way, did i mention that it will create a lot of jobs along the way? so, mr. president, whether it is to benefit the economy to create better-paying jobs, to make people safer, to improve the quality of life, i feel as if we have done it. will rogers said the elected

official is nothing but the hired help. i agree with that. we were sent here to do a job. this legislation shows that congress can still work, can still do its job for the american people. with that, i yield to my colleague from utah. mr. romney: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. romney: thank you, mr. president. it's an honor to be here. they say that making law is like making sausage. but i have seen sausage made, and it's a prettier process, and it's a lot easier. but this has been a lot more rewarding. i have enjoyed the time we have had together. my good friend from west virginia talked about how much money we're spending here, how big this is, but let me note something, underscore something. this is paid for. this is not going to raise taxes on people. this is instead taking some money that was already appropriated, not used for covid relief, we're going to bring that back and use it to help build infrastructure. this is a bill which is paid for and that gives the american people something they desperately need, and that is an

upgrade in our infrastructure. now, of course, you know it was several months ago that this group came together. we called ourselves affectionately the g-10. senator portman and senator sinema have shown enormous patience and persistence and resolve getting this across the finish line. i want to particularly thank senator capito for laying out the foundation which we built upon and led to the final piece of legislation. as has been said, neither side has gotten everything we wanted. there are a bunch of things i don't like. there are things in this bill that my democrat friends don't like and take out. but the nature of work in washington is to have something that has enough good of both that we get something done. each side has been waiting after one president after another and saying we need to do something about infrastructure and we haven't done anything. this time we have. we could let the democrats do

something on their own. with reconciliation, they didn't need our help. but the president and the leaders of the democratic party said let's see if we can't do something collectively. i know members of both parties have been mischaracterized our efforts as somehow linked to paving the way to the democrats' $3.5 trillion wish list. if you don't think our democrat friends are going to push for that monstrosity with or without this bill, i have a bridge in brooklyn to sell you. they are going to push for that anyway. this is a piece of legislation. i hate that one, i love this one. and there will be an effort to stop that bill from going forward. this is not perfect. it is paid for. i want to note as well if the democrats had written the bill entirely on its own, utah would have ended up on the short end of the stick. because of our involvement in this effort, some of our rural states, like mine, have been

able to have a seat at the table and that means limiting the spending on bad policy that only benefits the rich coastal cities in the east an far west. i'm proud of this bill because it benefits americans across the country. we have talked about addressing our nation's infrastructure, this bill turns that talk into reality. without raising taxes on hardworking americans or adding to our debt. i'm proud of my colleagues. it's been fun working with them. challenging from time to time to have to listen to me, i'm sure they would tell you. i'm proud of what we did together an urge my colleagues support it. i respectfully request that we yield just a minute more to senator portman. mr. portman: i thank my colleague from utah and for his wise words. it is true. it was a $2.6 billion package proposed by president biden.

we're at $550 billion. this is an alternative with no taxes. i do want to say that there was another effort under way before we got started and shelly moore capito was part of the effort and decided to try to work with the white house to try to work with a proposal. they were not successful in the end of bridging the gap between where the white house was and where we were. this bipartisan approach turned out to be more successful, but we we are building on the fawn medication they created -- on the foundation they created. i appreciate the hard work they have brought us to this point today. i yield back my time. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: well, i thank my colleagues for their fine speeches and very much appreciate them.

now the bipartisan group of senators have finished writing the text of the infrastructure bill. i will take the procedural language the base of the bill here on the floor. i want to congratulate the members of the bipartisan group for their efforts. we haven't done a large bipartisan bill of this nature in a long time. i want to especially thank the staffs who burned the midnight oil many a night for their diligence, hard work, intelligence committee and skill. thank you, staff. these days it isn't easy to do major bills in the senate, especially bipartisan ones. so i tried to prod the negotiators along when they needed it and given them the space when they asked for it. in the end, the bipartisan group of senators have produced a bill that will dedicate substantial resources to prepare, maintained

upgrade our nation's critical infrastructure. it's been decades since congress passed such a significant stand alone investment and i salute the hard work done here by everybody. in order for our workers, businesses and economy to succeed in the 21st century, we cannot have infrastructure that's stuck in the last century. the bipartisan infrastructure bill is designed to bring our infrastructure up-to-date for a new century and that is a significant achievement. now, for the future, for the information of senators, here's how we plan to move forward. i will offer the text of the bipartisan infrastructure bill as a substitute amendment, as i promised, making it the base of the bill. then the senate will work to consider additional amendments to the bipartisan framework. given how bipartisan the bill is and how much work has already been put in to get the details right, i believe the senate can

quickly process relevant amendments and pass this bill in a matter of days. then i will move the senate along the second track for our infrastructure -- of our infrastructure effort and take up the budget resolution. a bipartisan infrastructure bill is definitely necessary, but to many of us it is not sufficient. that's why soon after this bill passes the senate, democrats will press forward with a budget resolution to allow the senate to make further historic vitally important investments in american jobs, american families, and effort to reverse climate change. look, i've set out two very ambitious goals for the senate this summer and we are now on the way to achieving both. as i said, both tracks, this one and the other, are very much needed by the american people and we must accomplish both.

now, after many days of waiting and a lot of hard work and a lot of compromise, i ask that the clerk report the pending business. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 100, h.r. 368 had, an -- an act to authorize funds for federal highways, highway transit programs and for other purposes. mr. schumer: i call up the sinema-portman substitute amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york, mr. schumer, for ms. sinema and others, strike all after the enacting clause. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with the further reading of the amendment so we may get forward to other amendments. the presiding officer: is there an objection? without objection, it is so ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president, i

ask consent that the senate resume morning business with all previous provisions in order. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, it is so ordered. mr. warner: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: i want to again thank the majority leader and all of my colleagues. i want to mention two other things very briefly. one, senator tester who has been intimately involved in this effort could not be here with us tonight but has been with us all day and weeks and weeks, and i do think it is important. the base bill that we will be negotiating will be the e.p.w. bill. that committee is chaired by tom carper, from delaware, he has a lifetime record from the house to his time as governor and to the time in the senate as always working in a bipartisan fashion. he has spent decades on infrastructure. he will carry the ball for the majority on this. we support him and commend him and we wouldn't be here if he

hadn't put together the kind of base bill that we were able to build upon. thank you, mr. president. with that, i yield the floor. mr. lee: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i i ask unanimous -- i ask unanimous consent to speak for the duration of my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: mr. president, it's an honor to serve in this body. it's an honor to serve with the men and women from whom we just heard. the senators from whom we just

heard are some of my favorite people in the senate, for that matter, they are some of my favorite people. i like them, democrats and republicans alike, they are hardworking. they've been working really hard and they've gotten very little sleep in the last few days. notwithstanding my great respect for them personally and professionally, i rise today because i've got real concerns with this bill, a lot of them. those concerns, unfortunately, can't be overcome by the respect i have for the individuals involved or my gratitude to them for their willingness to work hard for months on end and through the night on many, many nights in the recent past. these individuals are hardworking and they genuinely want to do good. i have a different perspective on this bill. i recognize that i'm the only one with that perspective on the floor right now, but i assure

you, mr. president, i'm not alone. i'm not alone among senators, and i'm sure not alone among those i represent and those represented by the 100 of us in this body. there are a number of americans who see that all is not well with the way we spend money, the people's money, within the federal government. and it's to them that i would like to direct my remarks tonight. let's talk for a minute, first of all, about infrastructure. one of the things that i think makes this an appealing piece of legislation is the fact that it deals with something that most americans intuitively understand we need. infrastructure is something that's somewhat uniquely position pd for government. it doesn't always have to be through government but it can be and it often is because it's a public good. it's a public good that's supposed to be accessible to all, nonsecludable and it's difficult to have that without some sort of a master plan.

infrastructure is also something that can make a difference between someone having to spend hours of their life each day stuck in gridlock traffic and being able to spend time at home with their family. infrastructure benefits us in countless ways. the fact that infrastructure is a good thing and that we need it is a different question from whether we can afford the infrastructure plan in this particular case. it's also a separate question from whether federal infrastructure is what we need, at least to this degree. remember, mr. president, that we are a government of powers that james madison described as few and define, federalist number 45, and he described the powers to the states as numerous and indefinite. the powers of congress, and by extension, the power of the federal government, are those for the most part outlined in article 1, section 8 of the

constitution. there have been a few other powers added since then. most of the power that we rely on in enacting legislation, the overwhelming majority of the legislation that we rely on can be found in article 1, section 8. article 1, section 8 really does come up with a pretty limited list of powers. we're in charge of trademarks, cope rites, postal roads and post offices and immigration code to determine immigration and naturalization, bankruptcy laws, declaring war, declaring mark and reprisal. that is a power that issues a hall pass to enact in state-sponsored acts of piracy on the seas. it is cool that we have that power and we don't exercise it often at least we haven't in the last century. we have the power to regulate

commerce, to collect taxes and to spend that money and i believe the best reading that clause, clause 1 of article 1 -- of article 1, section 8, is that we have the power to spend money on those powers that are enumerated in article 1, section 8, or elsewhere. we don't have the power -- in article 1, section 8, you won't find a generalized power that just says go out and spend things that you think would be good for the american people. some people make the argument that that very power can in fact be found in clause 1 of article 1, section 8. they will refer to what they sometimes characterize as the general welfare clause. now, the term general welfare is a term of art that appears in the constitution twice. it appears in the preamble, it is a nice statement, it doesn't

convey authority, the second time is article 1, section 8, clause 1. james madison believed and i believe most of the founding fathers were with him in that belief. it was intended to grant congress the power to spend money on those things that were put in charge of. it doesn't mean we spend money on anything we deem appropriate. there is also no power in there in article 1, section 8 or elsewhere in the constitution that gives us the power to create jobs. now, i understand that that is an appealing thing. people like being able to have jobs. they like an economy that provides jobs. and so when a politician can promise job creation, that sounds like an appealing feature. that in and of itself can't be our objective and that in and itself doesn't actually work. i'll touch on this a little more a little bit later. we have to remember the federal

government has no ability to generate wealth. it lacks that capacity. regardless of what you think of the federal government and the extent of federal power, the federal government can't create wealth. it can only transfer it. it can collect taxes. it can do new things. and those things can be good. they can even have positive impacts on the economy. we lack the power to generate wealth. we therefore have -- we therefore lack the power to create jobs. because remember, when we're taking money, we're taking it from someone else. taxpayers typically or in the case of borrowed money -- and we'll get more to that later. talking about future generations of americans who will pay for this. so we're not creating jobs. we're just taking money from one group of people to do a specific job. and, yes, some people might be employed in those projects. that doesn't mean we're actually creating jobs. nor can we forget the fact that

when we do something, we can always take credit for the things that we do. those things don't necessarily take account of the things in the economy that would have happened but for our intervention. we can't take into account what hospital wings might have been built but for the fact that we took a whole bunch of money and spent it on a federal priority. so let's get back to the distinction between state power and federal power, specifically as it relates to infrastructure. i can see a number of instances in which some infrastructure projects might well be appropriate for federal spending. it was president dwight d. eisenhower who proposed the creation of the interstate highway system back in the 1950's. one of the arguments that he came up with -- in fact, as i rule it was the principle

argument that president sighsen hour relied on -- eisenhower relied on in creating the highway system which was for purposes of national defense, we need to have a way we can move military personnel from one part of the country to another. he did research on it and discovered that many parts of the country would be inaccessible from other parts of the country. and if they needed to get troops from one area to another, that could create a real national security hazard. i suppose he might also have relied on the power to regulate interstate commerce, to my knowledge he was relying principally on the defense aspect of having an interstate highway system. so on that basis, he proposed that we create the interstate highway system. and he proposed and congress passed with his signature legislation creating a gasoline tax to pay for the creation of

the interstate highway system. he was more or less the deal he cut with the american people. he said look, we, congress, and the federal government as a whole will fund this. we will then fund the building of the interstate highway system. once the interstate highway system is built, we will hand it over to the respective states understanding that each state would have a portion of the interstate highway system running through it. well, hand over to each state the portions of the interstate highway system running through that state. those states would then be responsible for maintaining it and keeping it functioning and so forth. in the seven or so decades since that plan was conceived and hatched, we have now built the interstate highway system. it is complete. the federal gasoline tax has

been adjusted on several occasions since then. it's been a few decades since it's been adjusted, but it currently stands at 18.4 cents per gallon. that's the portion of what every american pays. when they go to the gas pump, regardless of what other additional state tax they might pay on that gasoline, it's 18.4 cents out of every gallon that goes into the federal highway trust fund. and that's still there notwithstanding the fact that the interstate highway system is still in existence. now, one might ask why. well, decisions have been made over time suggesting it might be appropriate still for us to maintain the interstate highway system using federal gasoline tax dollars. it's a decent argument, one that i can accept notwithstanding the fact that it wasn't part of the original plan. why then with federal infrastructure money do we always dip into the federal

highway trust fund and have to supplement it with general fund revenues? why is the 18.4 cents per gallon, a tax, remember, the remains of a tax originally put in place to build it with the understanding we'd hand it over and the states would maintain it. the question becomes even more interesting -- an even more interesting one when you realize it doesn't cost 18.4 cents per gallon to maintain the interstate highway system. in fact, it doesn't take anything close to that. estimates vary some. according to some estimates you can do that for about 5 cents per gallon and yet we collect 18.4 cents per gallon and yet that's never enough because on transportation funding, we routinely spend a lot more than that and we have to dip into other sources of revenue, including what we collect in income tax and so forth. why is that? well, it's because of mission

creep. instead of just focusing on federal infrastructure, we have focused on a lot of things that are not federal infrastructure, things that while lovely, useful, perhaps necessary aren't necessarily federal in nature. things like bike paths, hiking trails, beautification projects that go alongside a transportation corridor. in some cases mass transit systems. in some cases surface streets that may or may not even be connected to the interstate highway system and that in many cases start and end entirely within one state that are not part of the interstate network at all. so why then do we do that? i mean, we do that to a really large degree. as the sponsors of this bill, this bill that i received for the first time just moments ago. i was sitting on the senate

floor waiting to begin my remarks. 2,702 pages long. i see it sitting near the desk clerk right now. it's a rather impressive specimen. it's a large piece of legislation. it's one that i look forward to reading. it's one that i realize will not exactly read like a fast-paced novel. reading legislation like this and being able to digest it takes a fair amount of expe expertise. it takes a lot of patience. and it takes countless instances of cross-referencing to multiple existing provisions in federal law to understand. 2,702 pages. they've walked hard on it -- worked hard on it. it's taken four months to come up with it. even though i've got grave concerns with the legislation and can't fathom a circumstance in which i'll vote for it, although that said, that remains

to be seen depending on what we're able to change about it. you see, any piece of legislation can potentially turn into something that any member ought to be able to vote for depending on how the amendment process goes. in its current form i couldn't possibly vote for it because it simply spend as to much money, spends money that we do not have, and it spends an enormous amount of money at a time when the american people are feeling the pinch of inflation, inflation brought about predictably, foreseably by a government that spends way too much money. in effect, just printing more money. i mean, technically -- i know there's an additional step involved in that technically it's borrowed money. the treasury issues instruments of debt. and in those instruments of debt, we borrow money from our creditors. lots of investors from all over america and throughout the world who buy those instruments of debt from us.

because the u.s. dollar is the world's reserve currency and because many regard it as -- regard u.s. treasury as sort of the least bad investment of its kind, people will buy them and this stuff functions almost -- when we decide to issue additional debt, it functions almost as if we're hitting a button and just printing more money. when you print more money and you have a relatively fine night bass -- finite basket of goods and services that a economy -- an economy can produce in a particular year, that same basket of goods, when that same basket of goods can be targeted by more money, inflation is going to hit. and people are going to have to pay more for the same things that they always need to buy. so, look, this doesn't

necessarily hurt wealthy americans. in fact, some of the wealthiest and most well connected americans will get rich off of legislation like this. keep in mind this legislation spends $1.2 trillion. the $550 billion number is the number that just refers to the new spending. so that means there was already roughly $700 billion that they were anticipating would be spent based on past practice. that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to start all of us from the assumption that we will continue spending at that pace. it certainly shouldn't obscure the fact that this is an enormous amount of money, $1.2 trillion that we'll be spending here. this at a time when americans are feeling the pinch of inflation, precisely because of the pace at which we've been spending money. i mean, look, we are already spending way too much money even before covid hit. the last few years we've

typically been shelling out about $4 trillion a year through the federal government and tragically, even at the top of the economic cycle where we were right when covid hit, we were still borrowing one out of every four dollars we were spending. we're taking in about $3 trillion, spending about $4 trillion before covid hit. this at a time when we're at the top of the economic cycle, fantastic economic growth, record low unemployment. things were going great and we were still borrowing one out of every four dollars we were spending. covid hits. last year instead of spending $4 trillion, which is already too much, we spent $6.6 trillion, $6.7 trillion. so we spent $3.6 trillion more

than we brought in. one of my colleagues recently pointed out to me that about 37% of all u.s. dollars that have ever come into existence have come into existence in the last 178 months -- in the last 18 months. that by itself should help people understand why their dollars are going less far than they've ever gone before. because when you just add to the money supply, when government spends that much money that it does not have, that does not exist, it lessens the buying power of every dollar of every american. now there again, you've got some people, wealthy, well connected individuals and corporations in this country who will get very rich off of a $1.2 trillion spending bill. they just will. we know it. they've got sophisticated analysts, lawyers, lobbyists, compliance specialists who -- i

can assure you right now at this very moment are combing through that bill to figure out how they can get wealthy off of it. those who don't get wealthy off of it but who are already wealthy themselves probably won't notice the pinch as much. sure, they might notice that they're paying more from everything from gasoline to groceries to air travel, everything in between. but it probably won't impact their lifestyle, at least not for the top 1%. but then you've got pretty much everyone else, pretty much ev everyone else in america who is not wealthy, not well connected, who won't make money off of this and who isn't wealthy enough -- any person who is not wealthy enough to be able to cushion the blow of inflation to where it doesn't have the im-- doesn't impact their lifestyle, pretty much everyone else and that

means the overwhelming majority of americans. i'm probably talking 90% to 95% of the men and women in america really will get hurt by this. most people in america in one way or another are living paycheck to paycheck. and if their paycheck remains the same during a time period in which each dollar goes less far, that really hurts them. and if they're living close to the edge on what they can afford with that paycheck, and we further diminish the buying power of the dollar through our reckless spending in order to bring praise and adulation from the media and from each other, shame on us. that's reverse robin hood. that's stealing from the poor to give to the rich. why then would we do that? why would we do that right now? by the way, with this same spending spree, this orgiastic

convulsion of federal spending for money that we do not have. we have labor shortages, and we have material shortages. the cost of labor and the cost of materials that will go into these projects are costing more than they ever have before. why is this the time to aggressively push something when we know full well that it will cost more right now because of other things that we've done, and that will in turn make other things that the american people need to buy more expensive. shame on us for making poor and middle-class americans poorer so that we can bring praise and adulation to ourselves and more money to a small handful of wealthy, well-connected interests in america. that begs the additional question. there has got to be an additional reason why you would want to make all this spending federal. keep in mind, it's not just that

most powers of government are and are supposed to be lodged in states and localities. that is also true, but it's also true that most infrastructure falls within the domain of states and localities. the most roads that people use from one day to the next or state roads or local roads. they are not federal. so why does all of this need to be federal? why couldn't some of this, why couldn't most of it, why couldn't perhaps nearly all of either the new spending or all of the spending incorporated within this $1.2 trillion package, why shouldn't that be something that states and localities could play a part in? now, one might -- one might reason perhaps there is some

additional efficiency that could come from this centralization of this plan by making the plan federal, by making the money federal. maybe we can make it more efficient. we can standardize it. that argument might be compelling if it were true, but it isn't. quite to the contrary, mr. president. when you add federal money to any infrastructure project, the minute you add federal money to it, you attach a whole host of federal laws and federal regulations that the state or local government carrying out the work then has to comply with. such that if the project were not federal, if there were not federal dollars in place, they couldn't have to comply with the same byzantine labyrinth.

they wouldn't have to negotiate this labyrinth of mandates. this affects everything from the cost of labor to the cost of materials to the length of time needed to complete the product, the paperwork involved. and at the end of the day, it results in less of that money going in to steel and concrete being placed in the ground and a whole lot more of it going to lawyers, accountants, compliance specialists and delays, frankly. in fact, this varies a little bit from state to state, but in many states, including my own, you often add 30%, sometimes it's closer to 40% to the cost of a project the minute you add federal dollars. even just a few federal dollars will add these requirements, and those requirements require a lot of additional money. it's not the case that we make this more efficient, that we make each dollar stretch farther by consolidating it and

distributing it back to the states, which is how these infrastructure projects often work. it's also intuitively something that doesn't add up. why would we take money, bring it to washington, run it through our filter, knowing that some of that money can slosh around, some will get lost administratively, and send it back? that wouldn't make things more efficient. separate and apart from the fact that we make infrastructure more expensive when we do that, it doesn't make sense intuitively. all of this also arises in a context in which due to the recent spending spree that we have been on in washington, we're at a scary place with regard to our debt to g.d.p. ratio. about two years ago, when the

congressional budget office issued a report, a report expressing some concerns for the fact that we were at the time i believe at about 79%. our debt to g.d.p. ratio was at about 79%. it's concerning because it had been mounting for some time. it was continuing to mount at the time. it was continuing tragically to mount even though we were at the top of the economic cycle with good job growth, good economic growth, low unemployment and so forth and yet we were still adding to the debt at a rate of about a trillion dollars per year. but they concluded, yes, 79% debt to g.d.p., this is bad. they also forecast at the time that we might cross the dreaded 1 hrp debt to gpt -- g.d.p. ratio within about a decade. at that time they thought it

would be crossed about 2029. there has been a lot of research done on this. a couple of economists from stanford university wrote a book. the name of the book was "this time it's different." it's one of many academic publications that have explored the relationship of the debt to g.d.p. ratio and economic growth. they conclude that once you cross that threshold, 100% debt to g.d.p., economic growth tends to stall, and it becomes much more difficult to manage the federal debt at that point than the national debt that you're dealing with. they have done this using models from all over the world going back hundreds of years. they have concluded this is the threshold at which economies tend to stall out. and the name of the book was invierd by the fact that it said basically every country when it

approaches this sort of thing tends to -- the government tends to tell the people of that country don't worry, we're different. this time it will be different. just as americans and the federal government tends to tell people don't worry, this time it will be different. they say it's not. this is real stuff. so it was with some concern a couple of years ago when the congressional budget office issued this report saying yeah, we're at 79% now, and by the end of the 2020's, if we don't turn things around, we should be hitting 100% debt to g.d.p. ratio. just a couple of weeks ago, mr. president, the c.b.o. issued another report. that report concluded that by the end of this year, by the end of 2021, our debt to g.d.p. ratio will be at a staggering 106%. at that moment, we really should

be very concerned. regardless of how comfortable someone has been with deficit spending in the past, there are many people who brushed off concerns by it, by making an argument that look, as long as the economy on the whole and the big picture is growing faster than the debt, we should be able to keep a lid on it. we should be able to prevent it from spinning out of control. now, look, there is some real appeal to that argument. but that appeal starts to dwindle. in fact, it disappears entirely once your debt is growing much, much faster than your economy. and it gets even more concerning. once you pass that 100% debt to g.d.p. ratio, because at that point many economists predict that you will experience not

just a cyclical, not just a periodic or episodic short-term economic downturn to growth, but you will experience a secular downturn, one that's likely to last much longer than that. so at a moment like that, i respectfully tend to think we should be asking ourselves the question about money that we're already spending. should we even be spending money that we have already been planning to spend? the $700 billion that we had planned to spend over the next few years. perhaps that can be pared back. but instead we are saying no, we're going to do all of that. not cut back on any of it. then we are going to add $550 billion to it. to me that's kind of scary. especially when you take into account how all these things are interconnected. the fact that we have been

spending too much, way too much, the fact that we have inflated the dollar is a result of inflation. americans are finding it harder to fill up their gas tank. they are finding it harder to pay their grocery bills. pay for their rent or mortgage. they are finding it harder to do just about everything. so why would we want to step on the accelerator at that moment, which also happens to be the precise same moment when the cost of all the things that we will need to undertake, this ambitious infrastructure spending package including materials, steel, concrete, labor, everything else we need in connection with that when all of these things are more expensive and made more expensive still by the fact that we're making them all federal. because when you use federal dollars for an infrastructure project, it typically costs a lot more. in a state like mine, it's often 30%, sometimes more than that.

it costs that much more the minute you add federal dollars. for that reason, in my state and in many others, state transportation officials, they are very bright. my friend carlos breceras who has been the long-time head of the utah department of transportation, he and his team in the state of utah and with the help of utah's governor and its legislature, they have figured out ways to make sure that when federal funding comes their way, that it doesn't bleed into everything. there are a number of projects that they try to keep insulated from federal spending, from federal dollars specifically for the reason that it's likely to cost more and sometimes take longer if you involve federal dollars in it. so why would we want to continue exactly as we have been going and then add to it an additional $550 billion?

now, on the inflation side of this argument, some of my colleagues will argue -- in fact, some of them argued tonight that this is noninflationary spending and that it's going to be lengthened over -- it will be spent over a lengthy period of time. we therefore shouldn't worry about the impact it might have on inflation. i have got a couple of responses to that. first of all, the fact that that we will be spending it over the period of several years doesn't mean it won't have an impact on inflation. the fact is that when we spend more federal money, especially federal money that we don't have, is the definition of inflationary. maybe it's not as inflationary as it would have been had this bill spent two or three times that amount and had it mandated that it all be spent immediately, but that doesn't make it noninflationary.

many of them also argued that it's okay because it's all paid for. the new money is all paid for. well, it's one of the things that we will be exploring over the next few days, and i hope we'll have even longer than that to wade through it. on this point, i would add simply that my colleagues, again, all senators for whom i have tremendous respect and affection. every one of these senators has worked on this, has worked hard on it, they are passionate about it. i like them. i respect them even though i disagree with them on this. but many of them pointed out that it's paid for, yet when you look at the pay-fors, i wonder whether it actually is. some of the arguments that they make, they are saying that it's

all paid for. rely on things like recapturing covid moneys -- covid funds already appropriated but not yet spent. i suppose that's a good thing to do. if we have got covid money, we have appropriated. if it hasn't been spent, i suppose we have to recapture that and direct it somewhere else, but i'm not sure that that necessarily means that there is no cost or consequence to choosing to spend it here. if we proimented more -- proimented more money -- appropriated more money for covid, shouldn't we give it back to the american people or pay down the debt so we don't add to the debt as quickly. i think that ought to be on the table as well. that's part of it, the argument that we're taking a big chunk of it from covid money that's previously been appropriated but not spent. they also rely on a number of

other arguments, suggesting that it's paid for and not through tax increases or additional borrowing. some of those arguments are, i suppose, technically defensible, but not necessarily within the spirit of what they are saying. there is a large sum of money. the last time i checked, their proposal was $$13 billion to reinstate the fees attached to the production and distribution of certain chemicals. like i said, last time i checked, the proposal was at about $13 billion, falling into that category. it might be more or less because, again, we just now received the 2,702 page bill that now sits at the clerk's desk in front of us. so let's assume that it's

$13 billion from the collection of that. well, what that really is, based on my investigation of that, they are imposing taxes on the production and distribution of many chemicals, much of which is used in basically everything, basically all consumer products. so it's listed as a fee, not a tax. sometimes the distinction between a fee and a tax can be relatively minor and relatively insignificant but regardless, it's money that ends up being paid for poor and middle-class americans, in the form of higher prices on everything that american consumers buy. the biggest difference with this and a tax is that with a tax, there is a record somewhere of what the taiper is pay --

taxpayer is paying. but with a fee, such as a consumer product, as with many of these chemicals, it is a backdoor sort of hidden tax. it is actually less desirable than a tax increase in that respect. like i said, there are two purposes of our tax system. one is the more obvious purpose is to fund the government. the other purpose is to communicate the cost of government to the voter so that the voter knows what they are getting and what they are paying for it. things like these hidden fees that will increase the cost of all manufactured items, maybe just a little, but with no price tag attached to it, that seems kind of unfair to me. last i checked also there were $56 billion counted among the

pay-fors, $$60 billion that would be collected by the federal government as a result of increased economic activity stemming specifically from the money that we're spending in this legislation. now, i don't think we score infrastructure bills that way. to my knowledge, we haven't done that in the past, to my knowledge, the congressional budget office, whose job it is to score these things and -- and which i -- i hope will give us a score here. i don't think it typically scores infrastructure bills that way. to say, yeah, we're going to spend $1.2 trillion in this bill but that $1.2 billion being applied to the economy will do other things and that will generate revenue and will come back to us this way. you sometimes hear of things like that being done from

advocates of tax reform and sometimes dynamic scoring has been done in tax reform. i don't think it has tippic lib been done with infrastructure projects. i think it is speculative to assume that $56 billion would come from this and it wouldn't come from the federal government if we weren't doing this. it goes back to the common fallacy with government. you can see the tangible things that government does, but seeing those tangible things that government does often obscures and makes impossible to know what would have been done in the absence of government intervention, what hospital wing won't be built as a result of people paying higher prices for everything they buy and higher prices on their tax bill and through inflation generally. you don't always see all the consequences built into that,

but you can see the tangible benefits, which is why this is such a tantalizing, tempting thing for politicians. because, look, when politicians vote to spend more money, not theirs, but everybody else's, the way things work in our society today, in our mainstream media today, you will get praise for that. you will pretty much always get praised for voting to spend more of the american people's money as long as you can identify good people who will benefit from it. and you can almost always do that. and i'm absolutely certain that there are a lot of good, deserving, hardworking americans who will be able to point to things in this bill that they will benefit from. i won't take that away from the bill's sponsors, not for a moment. they are absolutely good things that will happen to good people, good, deserving people if we pass this legislation.

that's very tempting to do that because we'll get praised if we do it and once we create the expectation that we'll do it and then don't do it, we'll get criticized. those who vote for it will get praised, those who don't will get attacked as heartless and not caring for those people who will benefit from it. but, what, mr. president, about the americans who will be harmed by it? it's one of the tragic consequences of spending large volumes of money through a system of government. we have the luxury in government of collecting money by force. usually that force doesn't have to be brought to bear directly. it's the implicit threat of the potential of use of force that allows government to collect money. it is whats differentiates governments from individuals or any other enterprise that might

want to collect money. governments can use force and carry out the force to carry out our mandate. and so we always have to remember that even though we'll get praised for spending other people's money because there are good people who will benefit from it. there are other people who are harming. it's a tragic consequence of concentrated benefits and disbursed burdens attached to basically all spending legislation. it's really difficult. i don't know quite how to unravel it other than to say it's one of the many reasons why we should adhere to the constitutional norms established in 1787 as modified with each of the 27 amendments that we've adopted and figuring what is and what is not a federal priority.

there are a lot of things that are good ideas. we don't have to utilize force or the implicit use of force or the potential use of force for all of them, but that's what we do when we push things through government and when we push them through the federal government, we add other problems to them. back to the drafters of this legislation. it took them four months to get to this and, again, i commend them for doing it. i don't fault them for the fact that it took that long. i praised them for their willingness to dedicate their time and much of their lives to something they care about. i happen to disagree with where they are going with it, but i respect them on in the -- nonetheless greatly for it. think about this. this group that has been working together has been very, very intimately involved in the negotiation of the details of it. it took them four months to get

there. they are, what, ten or so of them, but there are 100 of us, and we've got 435 counterparts in the house of representatives. article 1, section 7 tells us you can't create legislation at the federal level without going through congress, you can't pass federal legislation without it passing the house and passing the senate and being presented to the president for significant and for veto. so it still does have to get through this body. what i would suggest, mr. president, is that if it took these ten or so of our colleagues four months to get here, it's not reasonable to expect that the rest of us can be brought to where they are in a matter of days. it's one of the reasons why we have committee processes and i'm not of the view that there's no piece of legislation that ought to ever be passed without it

having gone through a full committee process in regular order. there were lots of sometimes -- there are lots of times when that might be necessary or appropriate or there might be other extenuating circumstances. i wonder here why that didn't happen, but regardless, the bill's here now, it's on the senate floor now, we ought to consider it. but i would suggest this. if it took them four months to get comfortable with it, is it at all reasonable to expect that we should get through it in over the thresh -- and over the threshold of passing it, placing burdens on the american people that will last not just for years but for decades in a matter of days? would it be unreasonable to at least suggest that we have at least a few weeks to debate it and discuss it? that we ought to have half the time that they've had to prepare this. it took four morntdzs -- months,

shouldn't we have a month or two? it's a time where typically in congress members spend time in their home states. is it untreenl to suggest that maybe -- unreasonable to expect that we ought to take that time to vet this with the people in our states in i would like nothing more than to take that 2,702-page bill around the state of utah in the month of august. i'd love to get their input on it. i would love for them to have access in this document to have debate and discussion. sure, i've got grave concerns with it. in its current form, i can't vote for it, that doesn't mean that we can't make it better. that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a chance to review it. i don't expect that all 3.5 million utahans will read

that 2,702-page bill. it does not read like a fast-paced novel. but they still ought to have time to learn about what's in it, to at least read analysis performed by others and presented to them in a digestible form so that we can get their input on how it might affect their lives for good or for ill. some of the other arguments that we've heard also need to be addressed. we've been told tonight that many of our peer nations are spending more money on infrastructure than we are. i'm not sure that's true in every case. in fact, there aren't a lot of countries on earth that can afford to spend anywhere near the amount of money that we spend on anything, infrastructure or otherwise. so if that's what they are suggesting, i'm not sure the argument pans out in a

dollar-for-dollar or dollar for dollar equivalent analysis. if they are talking about g.d.p., maybe that's a good point. if we're talking about china, i'm not sure we want to measure what we do and evaluate the sufficiency of what we do on infrastructure the same way china would. china has a highly centralized form of government and a very highly centralized economy, which china being a communist dictatorship focuses around the government, around their national government. it's a critical difference. i don't think the chinese model is one we want to emulate here. the argument was also made that many in europe are spending more. again, perhaps maybe they mean a percentage of g.d.p., i'm not sure. i'd note here that, you know,

many countries in europe have the luxury of doing a lot of things that we don't in part because of the burden that we carry for them on issues of national defense. even with that, i would doubt highly that any country in europe spends more dollars or more dollar equivalents of whatever curbsy they use -- currency they use than the united states. i'm not sure what was meant by that argument. we have to remember, mr. president, that any time a politician, any time an elected official says you need me, the opposite is true. he or she saying you need me is actually saying i need you. people aren't here to serve the government. the government exists for the purpose of serving the people. we've got to be very, very weary

of anything that sounds like we're telling the people you need us. you need us to take money from you and to take money from your yet unborn children or for your children who are alive today but not yet old enough to vote and spend it in the manner that we deem fit. for that additional reason, we should be extra cautious. as much as i love and respect the colleagues who have put together this 2,702-page bill, i want to go through it to make sure it spends money in the way that my constituents would like which is all the more reason why if it took them four months, shouldn't we really at least take a few weeks with it and not just a few days? $1.2 trillion is what this bill

wants to spend. it's easy to get caught up in the words million, billion, trillion. in fact for most of our colleagues, most of us at one point or another have made the mistake, hopefully not in public as much, but at least in our private conversations as we discuss large numbers, large numbers necessarily involved in funding a government as large as ours is. sometimes we'll find ourselves saying million when we mean billion or billion when we mean trillion or some other combination of sin tactic errors. there is a big difference between them. a tho thousandfold difference at every level. remember a number of people have

pointed out recently in order to encapsulate the point, a milliseconds lasts just 11 and a half days. a billion seconds lasts 31.69 years. a trillion seconds lasts 31,688.74 years. there's an enormous difference here, an enormous difference that we ought to take into account. so i don't mean to suggest that any of this is easy. it's not easy at all. we ought to get concerned any time someone proposes that we spend this much money all at once, we've got to do our due diligence. people like to talk about roads and bridges, wastewater projects. they like to talk about

potholes. those things are all really important. mr. schumer: would my colleague yield for a minute for a brief interruption. i'll close the senate but then allow him to speak. as long as he should choose. i see he doesn't have many notes but it's all generous. i know that. mr. lee: s go ahead. mr. schumer: okay. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 12:00 noon monday, august 2 and that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and morning business be closed, that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate resume consideration of h.r. 3684. the presiding officer: is there an objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. schumer: if there's no further business to come before the senate, ask it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of

senator lee. i yield back to the senator from utah. mr. lee: thank you. thank you, mr. president. i appreciate my friend and colleague, the majority leader, for allowing me to finish my remarks this evening. so when we look at legislation like this, i hope we can pay attention to a few details, a few details focused on more than just our roads, bridges, wastewater projects, and other infrastructure matters. are they important? i hope we will ask specifically are they appropriately federal? could they be just as easily handled at some other level of government? i hope we will also ask if they are appropriate for the federal government, are we spending

appropriately there and are we doing it at the right time? are we placing the dollars that we are going to spend on the right things. i also hope, mr. president, that we'll pay careful attention to something that my friend and my distinguished colleague from arizona, senator sinema, said. she pointed out that throughout this process it was difficult and time consuming. i like how she put it. she said it's supposed to be that way. our founding fathers set up a system in which it would necessarily be difficult and time consuming to get there. she's absolutely right. it's -- it's not supposed to be easy to pass legislation because legislation, especially like this, impacts a lot of people, a lot of people who are not here. there are only a hundred of us who have the privilege of

serving in this body, and we've got 330 million people in this country who will be affected by it. and they'll be affected by it for a long time to come. that's why it's supposed to be difficult and time consuming. so there again i point back to the fact that it took this committee, this committee -- or this group -- they're not a committee -- a group of ten or so senators four painstaking months to come up with this. and it's to their credit that they were able to get it done even in that amount of time. again, you know, i don't agree with the conclusion that they reached. i can't vote for this bill as it's written, but that really is remarkable that they were able to do it in that period of time. but the fact that they as a small group were able to do that in four months means that this body has no business passing this legislation in a matter of just a few days.

quite arguably we should need more time than that, not less, to digest it but let's just for the sake of discussion and for the sake of respecting what appears to be a widely held view in this body we ought to act on this, we at least need a few weeks. we shouldn't be doing this in just a few days. ile hope that we will keep in mind that every one of us in this body holds an election certificate, whether we participate in the drafting of this bill or not, and every one of us should have the opportunity to offer up amendments and to vote on those amendments, to make improvements to the bill whether we support it in its current form or not, whether we intend to vote for the finished package or not. every one of us deserves an opportunity to offer up as many amendments as we may choose. if we wanted them voted on, they should be voted on. we shouldn't be afraid of them.

often it's through the amendment process that we discover the nooks and crannies, we discover the unintended consequences that we allow the public to have visibility and to what has been a process that most people don't have access to. so i hope that we'll do that and that we'll be respectful to each other's views in doing that. bad things happen when legislation, emily legislation -- especially legislation spending as much money as this one does or anything close to it is drafted in secret. look, there's no problem -- i don't have a problem at all that they've been meeting -- members have every prerogative to decide what they want to propose behind closed doors. that's how the deliberative process works that results in legislation. but once it's here as it is now, we need to take into account the fact that this hasn't been through committee. this hasn't been aired in its

current form. we have to give did the adequate airing -- it the adequate airing that it needs and the american people deserve. so i hope and expect in the coming days, what i hope will be the coming weeks we'll have the opportunity to review this in full, to share it with our constituents, to have it analyzed, to have it scored by the congressional budget office. we have no business spending this kind of money without a c.b.o. score. and then members need to be able to offer improvements on it. we live in difficult times and we live in times where there's a lot of rancor and there's a lot of disagreement. i'm glad that there's been a good feeling here tonight. people have been able to come together. sometimes though we can't pass legislation simply because it's barm. we can't expect -- bipartisan. we can't be expected to pass it

because some democrats and republicans agree with it. that's not all that uncommon. from watching the news sometimes you get the impression we can't stand each other and there's such deep rooted animus across part lines and we can't get anything done because there's partisan gridlock that stops everything. well, i offer a different perspective to that, mr. president. the fact that legislation like this occurs, bipartisanship, the fact that you don't get to be almost $30 trillion in debt without a whole lot of bipartisanship. every single time we add an enormous sum to our national debt, there's bipartisanship behind it. just because something is bipartisan doesn't mean that it's taking into account the needs of poor and middle-class americans who increasingly of late are being robbed blind by those who for short-term

political gain and praising the media -- praise in the media will make things more expensive for the poor and middle class, enabling a small handful of wealthy and well connected interests to benefit from it. the fact that it's bipartisan shouldn't obscure the problems with it. i hope we'll have an opportunity to address those problems and that we'll give this legislation the due consideration it deserves. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the prthe presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned -- the presiding officer: the senate stands