Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request Hearing for the Department of Transportation

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee's hearing on the fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Department of Transportation:

Thank you, Chairman Womack and Ranking Member Quigley, for holding this hearing, and congratulations Chairman Womack on your first hearing as Chair of this subcommittee.

And thank you, Secretary Buttigieg, for being here today, and for all you have done to streamline and improve the travel experience throughout our airports, rail systems, and other transportation modes, and for your role in overseeing all of the work underway across this country rebuilding American infrastructure thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

I know we all wish we were joined in this hearing by the new Chair of the full committee, and the previous Chair of this subcommittee, Chairman Cole, and we pray for a swift recovery for the communities across Oklahoma impacted by recent tornadoes.

For hard-working Americans' business travel, daily commutes, hard-earned leisure travel, and everything in between, life in America requires safe and efficient ways of connecting. Americans deserve the safest, most advanced systems in the world, across all forms of transportation.

Our transportation infrastructure is central to the health and wellbeing of all our communities. It connects everyone—in urban, suburban, and rural areas—to their jobs, schools, grocery stores, and the care they depend on.

And the work of your department together with this subcommittee ensures every American has access to reliable, safe, and efficient transportation.

As Americans travel in greater numbers than ever before, we have seen our transportation infrastructure put to the test. Massive air travel disruptions, catastrophic train derailments, and elevated pedestrian fatality rates emphasize that the work to improve our transportation systems is never-ending.

Together over the past three years, through this committee's annual investments and in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we have done so much to repair our transportation infrastructure, but progress must continue.

In the 2024 government funding package, this committee made robust investments in the safety and durability of our transportation infrastructure. We created and sustained tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs with investments in our airports, highways, transit systems, passenger rail, and in our ports.

We made targeted investments to improve our transportation systems' safety, cut emissions, increase resiliency, address inequities, and fight the climate crisis while generating economic opportunities for working- and middle-class families.

And we protected the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, ensuring that legislation's generational investments continue to complement the work your department does on an annual basis.

To build on this success, the President's request for DOT includes $25.7 billion in discretionary funding to create safer, more equitable, and more modern transportation systems.

Critically, the budget calls for an additional $1.7 billion in funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, which desperately needs to bolster staffing and modernize its systems to keep up with the historic rates at which Americans are traveling through the skies.

The budget also invests in the Federal Railroad Administration for infrastructure and safety enhancements, and to ensure Amtrak is able to meet the needs and demands of the public, which is increasingly looking for rail options to meet their travel needs. I ride Amtrak twice a week and it's always crowded, it really is full. It is a great and wonderful safe way to travel.

I know you believe, like I do, that investing in our transportation infrastructure is one of the best ways to supercharge the American economy. We get an extraordinary return on our investment dollar when we connect communities, facilitate commerce, and draw Americans closer together by building modern, fast, and safe transportation systems.

Thank you again, Secretary Buttigieg, for all your work.

With that, I thank Chairman Womack, and Ranking Member Quigley, and I yield back.