Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News this morning to discuss the details of the bipartisan infrastructure package. Excerpts and a link to the full video are below.
On its Contents:
“It’s roads and bridges, specifically. In addition to that, there’s ports, waterways, railroads, airports, broadband, all of which are critical to the movement of goods and services around this country and around the world. We couldn’t get North Dakota soybeans to South Korea if we didn’t have ports in the Pacific Northwest, and we certainly couldn’t get pasta in New York without trucks getting the wheat from the field to the bins and then off to the mills and the factories.”
On Bipartisanship:
“Are there some things that Democrats like? For sure. Are there some things that are missing that we would love? Of course there are. But this is a 50-50 Senate, and the Democrats have a majority in the House [of Representatives] and the White House, so you will have to take some of those things to get all the other really good things. All of the other things that you referenced aren’t exclusively Democratic principles; Some of those things contribute to the overall infrastructure of our country. This is all hard infrastructure, Maria. You might argue with some of it. I don’t like the electric vehicle charging stations, for example. If I was king I wouldn’t support that, but fortunately our Founders gave us something other than a king.”
On Conservative Victories:
“Here’s one thing that I fought really hard for: permitting reforms, such as maintaining the permitting reforms we put, that [former-President] Donald Trump, put in as an order. Remember, he had the rule that created the One Federal Decision rule that took ten-year projects down to two years. Remember that whole ten-year to two-year argument? Well, [President] Joe Biden repealed that on the very first day in office. We are codifying it in this law for roads and bridges. That’s a major reform to permitting, along with agency coordination. It’s what it allows agencies to do things collaboratively and collectively, rather than consecutively, shortening the time frame, and it extends the permitting council that was implemented about 4 or 5 years ago. That’s for large private sector infrastructure projects that include water projects, large highway projects, Corps of Engineer projects. So there are some major reforms there that would have never been agreed to by Democrats. Now, with regard to southern border, obviously we are not going to get Democrats to agree to a bill that builds a wall.”
On former-President Trump’s Criticism:
“He didn’t give one reason why it’s a bad deal, other than it’s [President] Joe Biden’s. I understand that, and I understand his frustration, and he’s obviously got influence and has legitimate opinion. But the fact of the matter is the American public, including the vast majority of Republicans, are very supportive of this [bill]. Everybody from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable to my local convenient stores and the labor unions support this bill. There’s some nearly 200 organizations that have come out in support of this bill. We need roads and bridges. We are falling behind our competitors, particularly China, with regard to transportation infrastructure. It is what moves goods and services around the world.”
On Political Advantages:
“Democrats are going to do a much larger jam-it-down-your-throat, tax-and-spending reckless deal. There’s nothing that’s going to stop that from happening. By passing this, however, we take hard infrastructure off the table for them because that’s part of the negotiation with the moderate Democrats. We make the next deal much more difficult politically for moderate Democrats to support. So we are actually, in passing this, I think, have created a political advantage for moderates and for conservatives in this country. Because if we don’t do this, the other outcome would be, why would moderate Democrats ever trust to negotiate with Republicans again while they’re in the majority, when they could just blow up the filibuster and we will be giving every, you know, every argument to do so.”