[inaudible conversations] the hearing will come to order. first of all i want to thank all of you for being here today and thank ranking member cardin and his staff with the flexibility for the scheduling of today s hearing. it s interesting because ben cardin and i are maybe three of the last remaining of the class of 1987. we had lamar smith and a couple more. anyway it s funny we are an opposite sides and a lot of issues but we are artists together in friendship as well as infrastructure. as this week s infrastructure week it s a great opportunity for us to highlight the critical needs we have in this country pay tomorrow the full committee will have the chance to question secretary chao on the administration s priorities and it s my hope that today s hearing will be a productive lead into her visit. last congress the epw committee led the charge to pass the fast act, the highway reauthorization bill that i personally worked on and this was the largest one since 1998.
first of all, want to thank all of you for being here today. thank my ranking member carden and his staff and the flexibility they have. it s kind of interesting, ben cardin and i were maybe three of the last remaining of the class of what was yeah. 1987. we re we have lamar smith and a couple more. anyway, it s funny. we re on opposite sides and a lieutenant of issues that we re always together in friendship as well as in infrastructure. as this week s infrastructure week, it s a great opportunity for us to highlight the critical needs we have in this country. tomorrow the full committee will have the chance to question secretary chow. the epw committee led the charge to pass the fast act, the highway reauthorization bill that i personally worked on. this was the largest one since 1998. nobody believed that we d get it done. others thought that we d only get an 18-month bill that senator boxer and i insisted on five years and it shows that people of different floss kiss
the meeting comes to order. first of all, we want to thank all of you for being here today and thank my friend ranking member cardon and his staff for the flexibility with the scheduling today s hearing. it s kind of interesting because ben cardon and i were are maybe three of the last remaining of the class of what was that? yeah, 1987 chlt after the issue was behind us. this is beginning to be different. we re always together in friendship and in infrastructure. as this week s infrastructure week, it s good to highlight the critical needs we have in the country. tomorrow the full committee will have the chance to question secretary chao and the administration s priorities and it s my hope this hearing will be a productive lead into her visit. they led the pass to pass the fast act, the six re-authorization bill that i personally worked on. this is the largest one since 1998. nobody believed that we would get it done and others thought we would get an 18-month bill.
what a difference we ve seen in the past 24 hours. yesterday temperatures in the 90s, today a lot cooler. i m here in the storm center with meteorologist doug kammerer. doug, what s the afternoon rush going to look like? well, we saw 92 degrees yesterday. today we went all the way down to 62 a 30 degree temperature drop. a huge dip and what a change. it really has been. that s going to stick around with us as we move but tlt evening. storm team for radar showing just some rain to the south, toward southern st. mary s county, toward the northern neck. that s really about it. the rest of us see something areas of drizzle but we won t see a lot more in the way of heavy rain like we did yesterday. any rain tonight should be be on the very light side. look at the numbers 70 in richmond, 71 vinch virg beach only 62 in hagerstown right now 61 in ocean city. we have a very cool air mass in place, a completely different air mass than we ve seen over the past couple of daze and reall
i pledge to and we leave these remarks from the pennsylvania governor to go live to capitol hill for a senate hearing looking at the nation s infrastructure and modernization efforts, being held by the senate environment and public works committee. these things allow for american goods to go from the heartland to the coast and even overseas. they allow for flood protection for both rural and urban communities that save lives. in addition, our committee has jurisdiction over the environmental laws that impact the modernization of infrastructure. doesn t matter whether the setting is urban or rural, rules and regulations can halt and delay the modernization of infrastructure and the impact is particularly counterproductive if they re applied without understanding the difference between urban and rural. our committee has members from both urban and rural areas. the members of this committee represent new york city, and new port, rhode island, nebraska city, nebraska, and m