{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/press-releases/sen-scott-emphasizes-importance-of-local-solutions-in-transportation-infrastructure/", "Sen.\u00a0Scott Emphasizes Importance of Local Solutions in Transportation, Infrastructure", "2024-07-31", "2024", "2024-07", "Republican", "Senate", "SC", "Tim Scott", "S001184", "www.scott.senate.gov", "timscott", "https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/press-releases/jsf/jet-engine:press-list", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2014 In his opening remarks at today\u2019s U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on infrastructure and public transportation investment, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the committee\u2019s top Republican, stressed the importance of pursuing local solutions to local problems that will promote targeted developments to improve infrastructure in both urban and rural communities. Noting that progressive policies have led to record-high inflation and increased costs across the board, Senator Scott pushed back on the Biden administration and Democrats\u2019 efforts \u2013 from their climate agenda to burdensome regulations \u2013 that have made it more difficult for local communities to make improvements to their infrastructure.\n\nSenator Scott\u2019s opening remarks as delivered:\n\nThank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today. Thank you for the committee members who are here with us as well.\n\nOne of the challenges I see on this conversation that we\u2019re having today is to realize that local problems need local solutions. It\u2019s really hard for folks in Washington, DC to understand the transit needs of folks in Charleston, South Carolina, Summerville, South Carolina, Columbus, Ohio, or Chicago, Illinois.\n\nThe most effective thing that we can do is make sure that the resourcing goes without all the red tape and challenges that comes from Washington, D.C. Getting that done seems to be too close to Peter walking on the water. Nearly a miraculous occurrence and manifestation has to happen for us to just do the simple thing.\n\nI spent half my career in politics on the local level, understanding and appreciating transit systems, infrastructure projects, and what it takes to get those things done.\n\nWhen I first became a senator, the one thing I did was, I decided that as a kid who grew up in a single parent household mired in poverty, who understood the transit needs of the poorest Americans trying to get to the job, I wanted to make sure that I was sensitive to the current state of Americans trying to get to work, so I decided I\u2019d go back to the old bus routes and get on those bus routes and spend time talking to people waiting on the bus to come.\n\nI remember talking to a grandmother who worked at Walmart, who wanted to spend more time with her grandkids on the weekends, but she would spend 80 to 90 minutes early in the morning waiting on the bus, seven hours at work, and 80 or 90 minutes to get back home. Three hours to work a seven-hour shift for slightly more than minimum wage to provide the resources necessary to help our grandkids have a better life and a better opportunity to experience and enjoy the American Dream. Having the conversations with folks who are struggling to make ends meet, thinking about how challenging it is as a local official to understand and then to decide the right transit routes, so that the folks who need public transportation have access to the right routes at the right times to get to the right job. You just can\u2019t do that from Washington.\n\nThe one thing Washington has done poorly is to put on more onerous burdens on local government and state government, because somehow 535 people in Washington seem to know everything about local needs, and yet we seem to know nothing about getting the job done.\n\nAs an example, my friends on the left are always looking for a \u201cNew Green Steal.\u201d They call it the New Green Deal, but in the end it steals opportunity and innovation, creativity, and resources from local folks to make good decisions about what they need. But it\u2019s not just transit \u2013 it\u2019s actually the infrastructure needs that are delayed time and time again.\n\nI was thinking about this recently and it takes about seven years \u2013 seven years \u2013 for a project to turn the shovel on a new highway program.\n\nI think about Highway 17 and its expansion in Mount Pleasant in South Carolina a number of years ago. The frustration I felt as the chairman of the county, waiting for all the red tape to be cut so that we could simply turn a shovel on a project that had been approved for years. And I sent some notes to my friends back on county council just to make sure that I was right about the seven-year process.\n\nIt could take up to two years for the planning and the programing just to meet federal threshold so that projects can start. And then after you do that, it can take up to three years, whether it\u2019s NEPA or other environmental challenges through the Green New Steel. On top of all of that, you recognize that this onerous burden to start a road project takes seven years.\n\nNow, here\u2019s the challenging part. When you get the price of a highway project, let\u2019s say those days, it was several hundred million dollars, $700 million. It\u2019s not anticipated that seven years later, somehow, someway, miraculously, that same road project is going to cost the same amount of money seven years later. That\u2019s what we call in South Carolina \u2013 ridiculous, hogwash. It just doesn\u2019t work that way.\n\nBut none of that is anticipated in the actual price that people pay. Waiting and waiting and waiting for the federal government just to do their jobs and get out the way. But then after you get through the environmental review and compliance, which three years later, then you go to the preliminary final design \u2013 up to two more years on this process.\n\nAnd at the same time of this is happening, currently under the Biden administration, everybody wants to celebrate the IJA and the I.R.A., the most ridiculously named bill in maybe American history, the Inflation Reduction Act \u2013 that actually increases inflation \u2013 and the Chips and Science Act.\n\nWhat happens? Well, the cost of construction explodes to the highest level ever. It costs more money to do the same thing than it has ever cost \u2013 three or four years later.\n\nAnd so when you take a seven year delay on a road, you take all of the impacts studies that is that it takes. We\u2019re not smart enough to do them all at the exact same time. We\u2019re going to wait for the first two years before we start the environmental impact studies, before we start the\u2026 if this was a business we would just fire everybody.\n\nThat\u2019s what I would do. That\u2019s what I did when I was in business. If you can\u2019t, if it takes you seven years to get something started, I want a new \u2013 I want somebody else in charge. Americans want someone else in charge because the $2 billion problem that they have in Maryland to rebuild a road \u2013 a bridge \u2013 that\u2019s going to take four years is ridiculous. Unnecessary.\n\nAll you need is common sense and people ready to go to work. And unfortunately, every time well-intentioned politicians made the decision that we know better than the local community, it costs jobs. It costs prices because they explode. I gotta tell you, 13 years on the local level is a really good education on what not to do.\n\nLet\u2019s not burden local government with the Green New Steal \u2013 that $7.5 billion in green funding that resolves to only eight EV charging stations \u2013 that takes all those dollars away from being able to have real progress on real roads for real people to get to their jobs.\n\nMr. Chairman, I\u2019m glad we\u2019re having the hearing today. But I got to tell you, most Americans would say, skip the hearing block, block grant the money, and let a brother go to work. That\u2019s what they would say.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:32:29Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/press-releases/sen-scott-emphasizes-importance-of-local-solutions-in-transportation-infrastructure/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7821593210101128, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}