carper, what senator carper was saying, we need to hear the facts, and i think those will bear out today. thank you so much. thank you. mr. chairman: thank you, senator capito. senator carden. senator: thank you, mr. chairman. senator capito, let me just say, i don't think we're going to have a disagreement here. we want the fbi to consolidate in its most efficient ways and we understand that some of the functions may be better performed in other locations, so i'm not sure we'll have any disagreement on that particular point. senator brasso, i really want to thank you. the united states senate delegates to this committee the responsibility for authorization and oversight of public buildings. and chairman brasso has taken this responsibility at a very high level, which i think is very important for our committee, so i want to thank our chairman for paying great attention to this and giving us an opportunity to better understand why the original propeck us the was terminated -- prospect was terminated abruptly and now we have before us a different recommendation. so i thank the chairman fo

that is mark warner, tim kaine, tom carper. so different democrats in favor of this. but will it pass? here is what white crapo said

>> thank you, chairman, ranking member carper. i appreciate the kind words the men and women of the fbi and i look forward to taking that message back. members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to testify today. i'll be short in my comments for the last time i was here we discussed the decision to cancel the prior procurement and difficulties presented by the previous exchange proposed strategy and lack of available funding to move forward. the building commission has gone into that. gsa and fbi committed at the hearing to provide you with a copy has a report on the best way forward for the fbi project. as you are aware, that report has been provided to the committee and we appreciate the opportunity to discuss it today. during the past six months, since we met before, we have reviewed all the funding options that have been available when it could be available and have taken a comprehensive approach on how best to move forward with this project. at the core of the review, and i can assure you, in terms of what the fbi is

committee, who has had a lot of say in this proposal, senator carper. mr. carper: thank you. some of you have heard me ask the question, what is the role of government, what is the role of government? lincoln once answered that question with this answer. he said, the role of government is do for people what they cannot do for themselves. i believe that a major role of government is to -- we don't create jobs in government. what we do is working with others, private sector, state and local government, we create a nurturing environment for job creation. access to capital. access to decision makers. public safety. water. sewer. transportation. those are some of the ingredients for a nurturing environment for job creation. when the president was elected and said at his inauguration how important investing in our infrastructure, airports, rail, airports, ports, internet, i cheered. quietly. but when i saw what they really had in mind, i mourned. i mourned. for years we have paid for roads, highways and bridges on a user-fee basis. what they propose is to sort of turn that on its h

thank you very much. >> thank you, senator carper. i would like to submit for the record about tiffia and wiffia. because the history of these programs have successfully demonstrating that federal funding can be significantly leverage and had we have testimony from jennifer to this committee in july of 2017 and without objection, that will be submitted. >> can i make a similar unanimous consent request to submit the university of pennsylvania school analysis that indicates that only 2% of the money -- >> be more than glad to put my comments to that as well. >> sure. and thank you. >> without objection. senator inhoff. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate you coming to me. i'm chairing the armed services committee hearing at this time, but this is so significant, what we're doing here, and i'm very excited about it, and i'm very positive about it. and we have been, just to clarify, in contact with our committees, the two committees, commerce and environment and public works and the white house, the administration, on many, many tim

i want to reinforce what senator carper said earlier. i was a bit surprised by the leadership enter the senate on my side, on the republican side that said they didn't look like they were going to have time. we should make more time. if we don't think we have time, let's workwe week ends. i think this is a great opportunity for bipartisan support. i'm not sure what my leadership was talking about. i think this is a huge priority. let's get to work. we should ye eight time. th compre eight time. this is a good, good opportunity. i want to thank you for the alaska visit. it's summit we had on infrastructure, sterling highway is now starting to move forward. it only took 25 years of permitting delays. other than that. it is starting to look good. your previous comments this morning on the importance of permitting, can you talk a little bit about you touched on it a bit, this whole idea of the funding actually for infrastructure in some ways can be and will be a function of how aggressively we address permitting reform. if you have a signifi

carper: texas a&m has run the numbers. they do it every year. literally sit there. we're not moving. we're not going five or 10 miles an hour. we're just sitting there. the average family in this country spends $500 per year fixing their tires, changing tires, axel, steering. $500 a year. and it doesn't have to be that way. doesn't have to be that way. i go home on a train just about every night. and on the train and when i get home, people almost every day, somebody says to me, we need for you guys to work together. down here. they want to us work together. i think most american people think and see one of the way ways we could work together actually, do something about choice, bridges, airports and so forth. and there's a way to do it honestly. and way to pretend that we're doing it. we can't just pretend. we cabinet just say it's only make -- we can't just say the only make believe. we have to make it real. i think this makes it real. mr. schumer: as more people learn about the tax bill, the less popular the becoming. it had a bump in january. we're now finding i

chairman and members of the committee, senator carper. i'm honored to testify before you on the administration's recently released infrastructure plan and the water resource needs and challenges of our nation. i look forward to working with you to advance the delivery of our nation's water resources infrastructure through innovative approaches and streamlined processes. the army has played a significant role in the development of the nation's water resources of the past. coastal maintains our navigation channels, inland waterways, navigation locks, flood control and hydropower plants. this has facilitated the movement of 2 billion tons of board commerce. it also provides 24% of the nations hydropower. much of our nation's infrastructure is aging and requires significant amount of resources to maintain. the traditional approach to constructing and maintaining these projects is not sustainable. the administration legislative principles released february 12, 2018 provide a common sense approach to addressing these issues. the legislative pri

thank you for letting me go on. >> thank you, senator carper. would like to welcome our guest, the honorable elaine chao and the assistant secretary of the army forsive works. your full written testimony will be part of your official hearing record. please keep your statements to five minutes so we may have time for questions. look forward to hearing your testimony beginning with secretary chao. madam secretary. >> chairman, ranking members and members of the committee, thank you being here. infrastructure is a backbone of our world class economy. the most productive, flexible and dynamic in the world. a key fact glory productivity and economic growing. and yet the challenges are everywhere. we respect to surface transportation, track congestion and delays cost drivers $160 billion annually. a quarter of the nation's bridge is structurally dedeficient nor neat of improvement. 20% of the nation's records are in poor condition and at the transportation needs of rural america which account for a high number of our nation's highway fatalities have b

carper: thanks very much. mr. president, we're here today to discuss what we call an omnibus bill, and i know that omnibus is another funny-sounding word that we use sometimes here in washington, but it simply means a bill that covers a lot of topics. there are provisions in the omnibus legislation that deal with everything from homeland security to the environment to veterans and science, just to name a few. it's particularly fitting that we're discussing an appropriations bill that covers such a wide range of topics as i come to the floor to recognize the service of a member of our staff who has worked on most of the policies covered in the omnibus legislation, maybe all of them, maybe all of them. gabrielle babkin, who is seated to my left, will probably wish that i wasn't doing this right now, but there is no doubt that she deserves to be recognized for her more than 20 years of hard work in the united states senate. for as long as i have known her, gabrielle has been an incredibly gracious person, kind, easy

that is mark warner, tim kaine, tom carper. so different democrats in favor of this. will it pass? here is what white crapo said during the hearings with jay powell, federal reserve chairman last week, about this bill. >> is it accurate this provision does not in any way restrict the fed's supervisory, regulatory, enforcement authorities to insure the safety and soundness of financial institution? >> yes. >> finally nothing in provision would restrict the fed's ability to make sure large financial institutions are well-capitalized? >> yes. reporter: same hearing, different senator, ranking senator on banking sherrod brown from ohio, opposed to rolling back dodd-frank regulations. here is what sherrod brown said at the hearing. >> your focus should be on fed doesn't permit the build-up of risk in the market and hubris at the fed. great moderation turned out to be not so great. we forget that lesson at our peril. the fed needs to take the side of consumers making sure the financial system stays strong and regulations are enforced. reporter: senate begins debate on bill

meetings, and you'll see there, we met with congress woman napolitano's staff, as well as senator carpers, senators harris, and senator feinstein. and we also had meetings with some staff directly. we met with department of labor, the national park service, and those -- i highlight those because while the primary focus of our meetings was really related to the seawall, we did have an opportunity to follow up on some additional issues, such as the wade survey that you directed the department of labor to have completed to our negotiations with the national park service and the alcatraz development. and we've also been -- had conversations with the national park service as it relates to historic tax credits for projects like pier 70. so we were able to have these very specific meetings to move forward the port's agenda. one of the most significant meetings that we had was again, related to our seawall project, and that is with the army corps of engineers. we were able to meet with the highest civilian -- highest ranking civilian staff person, director of civil war, james dalton, his staff, a

carper: i come to the floor today to talk about the legislation before us, the banking legislation that's -- the report out of the banking committee on a bipartisan vote like my colleague from washington state, i also want to speak briefly to the issue that's being raised in states across american schools across america where students are demonstrating their support, their solidarity with folks at parkland in florida who lost 17 kids earlier this year. the -- my dad was a hunter, grew up in west extra va, born in west virginia, grew up in virginia. bought my first bb gun when i was 10 years old. i still have the shotgun my grandfather gave me. he died when he was just a pup of a teenager. we're big believers in my family of second-amendment rights. big advocate for using common sense with respect to weapons. my dad was not only just a hunter, but he was also a gun collector. he would buy and sell guns to other people that he knew. my dad was from the time my sister and i were little kids, he would always say, just use some common sense. he said a lot to us growing up. he said it very ofte

senator carper. >> ambassador, nice to see you.ber of my colleagues have raised agricultural concerns with respect to the renegotiation of nafta and the loss of tpp, tariffs, imposition of tariffs from the trickle-down effect on them and their livelihood. i want to echo those sentiments. we only have three counties in delaware. the southernmost county, sussex county, third largest county in america. last time i checked, i think they were maybe the number one soybean county east of the app l appalachian mountains. i want to just reiterate that. i have a question on services. i think between 2006 and 2016, service exports from my state more than doubled, i think, from about $1.5 billion to $3 billion. those expertorts, i'm told, supt close to 20,000 jobs, which is a lot of jobs for delaware. this year's economic report to the president reiterates the fact that the u.s. has a trading deficit in goods, but as you know a surplus in services. the report goes on to say the report focuses only on the trade and goods alone ignores the u.s.

carper: i'm tom carper, and i approve this message. mr. president, i had the privilege of serving on the environmental and public works committee for -- oh, my gosh -- 17 years and now serve as the senior democrat on the committee. i've had the opportunity serving with sheldon whitehouse for more than half those years. he's a senior member of our committee, a good friend and i think someone who is respected by democrats and republicans and independents alike here in the united states senate. he's a senior senator from rhode island but he casts a long shadow on a lot of issues, none less than the issue that we're discussing here today. i just want to join my friend, senator coons, in thanking sheldon sincerely for his passion, for his persistence in highlighting what the vast majority of the world recognizes as the greatest environmental challenge of our time and that is climate change. our friend from rhode island is a well known climate champion, but what some may not know is that sheldon has bee spent over0 hours on the senate floor remi

then you got people like mark warner from virginia who is a cosponsor of this, thomas carper, christopher on board. there are senators like elizabeth warren and brown and schumer who are against all of this. eventually it eases the restrictions on mortgage lending for banks that have less than $10 billion in assets. it would also change the threshold for regulatory issues regarding investment, proprietary savings and raises the threshold from oversight to 250 billion. to give you an idea of where this is all headed, senator crapo had an exchange with jay powell last week and his what they talked about. >> is it accurate that this provision does not restrict the feds regulatory and enforcement authorities to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions. >> yes. >> and, finally, is it accurate that nothing in this provision would restrict the fed's ability to ensure large financial institutions are well-capitalized. >> yes. >> but of course there are senators opposed to it. democrats elizabeth warren has a ready come out and said to me this bill says it's all about how washingt