GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good afternoon, everybody. I convened this unprecedented bipartisan summit of governors, senators, and members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus to try to reach a bipartisan accord on a federal infrastructure package. Although we come from different parties and different levels of government, all of us are united in our commitment to bipartisan action to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure. And I want to thank each and every one of these leaders for their willingness to come together in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation and to explore ways that we can find common ground on this issue, which is an issue so fundamental to our economy, to our environment, and to our way of life.
And I’m pleased to report that we had a terrific summit yesterday and today, and we reached agreement on a series of principles that should guide any federal infrastructure package. The first and most important thing that we agree on is that any infrastructure package should be both developed and passed with the support of both Democrats and Republicans.
Second, we agreed that this bipartisan package must include investments in existing physical assets to make our communities more livable and enable us to more safely and efficiently move people, water, energy, and goods across America. Any infrastructure package must also include investments in new physical assets, broadband, digital, and energy technologies, to position America to great good jobs and out-innovate our competitors around the globe in the 21st century.
We agreed that any federal infrastructure package must be focused on physical and digital infrastructure. And we also had a frank and productive and open dialogue on some of the biggest sticking points for any infrastructure bill including the scope of the package, the overall cost, and how it should be paid for. We recognize that forging a bipartisan compromise on these issues will not be easy. But we all believe that it can and that it must be done.
I just want to thank every one of the leaders here behind me. We had a number of others that were with us who had to leave because of schedules, but all of these leaders who joined us here in Annapolis, I want to thank them for coming together with a real sincere desire to reach common ground on this important issue.
So at this time we’re going to have a number of people address you. I’m going to turn it over to my good friend and colleague from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Ralph Northam, who’s going to say a few words.
GOVERNOR NORTHAM: Well, good afternoon, and thank you, Governor Hogan, first of all, for your hospitality. It’s a beautiful day here in Annapolis, and I just want to thank you and your wife for hosting us and bringing us together in a bipartisan manner. It has certainly been a refreshing two days for governors to interact with our members of Congress and to discuss a topic that has been on the minds of us for years and decades, and that is infrastructure. And just to highlight the relationship that I have had over the years with Governor Hogan, we have already set precedent on how we work together state by state, and how we work in a bipartisan manner. We have worked on Metro, we are currently working on the American Legion Bridge, so good things are happening when we all work together.
I think we all agree that infrastructure is a top priority. We had a candid discussion last night and today and talked about our priorities, especially on a state level, and we agreed that this is not a cookie cutter situation. One size doesn’t fit all. Every state brings their priorities. So we agree with our members of Congress that governors need to let Congress know what our needs are, how we’re paying for things now, and how we intend to do that in the future. So it’s a great start. It’s a great initiative when we bring folks from both sides of the aisle together, and the ability for our governors to communicate with Congress really gives me a lot of hope and promise that we will move forward and address a lot of the infrastructure needs, and really be the best stewards that we can of our taxpayer money. So thank you all very much for the opportunity to be here. I’d now like to turn the podium over to our senator from West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin.
SENATOR MANCHIN: Thank you, Governor. Let me just say that what you see, a collection of all of us in public service, you have Democrat and Republican senators, you have Democrat and Republican Congresspeople, and you have Democrat and Republican governors. This is what governing is all about, coming together and finding a common cause. There’s not a greater common cause than infrastructure. If we can’t come together on infrastructure in the most toxic atmosphere we’ve had in Washington, then we’re in trouble
And let me tell you about infrastructure. Infrastructure is what makes this country great. It’s what’s grown this country. It’s where all the opportunity is. It’s where the jobs come from. And we all have the needs, and we all have the ability to fix this. And we’re looking together to find the solutions. Today was a great day. Again, I want to thank Governor Hogan. I want to thank his first lady, and I want to thank the staff. I want to thank all the people in the kitchen who made the greatest Maryland crabcakes I’ve eaten for a long time!
(Laughter.)
It’s just a pleasure to always come back to the oldest state capitol in the United States still actively working, and working hard for all the people in Maryland. But this is something that was very important today. We had great presenters, Governor Hogan’s put a great team together here that really presented the challenges we have, the problems we have. I can tell you this. In Washington, we will be able to come together. I have all the confidence in the world. I think this is truly a bipartisan effort, we’re working in a bipartisan way to put a good infrastructure bill. We can take care of the needs of our country and we can do it in a responsible way, and we also can take care of the opportunities the people of America need, and do it in a fiscally responsible way, and that’s what we’re working towards. So I want to thank everybody here, all of you all for doing such a great job, and all my colleagues. We don’t get together that often. You would think that we’re all in Congress, so the Senate and the House is always together. We’re not. I want to thank No Labels, I want to thank the Problem Solvers and all the people who worked together to give this us opportunity. It’s the greatest times that we have. We need to be doing more of this.
Without further ado, I want to introduce Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a leader of the Problem Solvers from the great state of New Jersey. Josh.
REPRESENTATIVE GOTTHEIMER: Thank you. First, thank you so much, Governor Hogan, thank you for having us, and first lady of the state. I’ll tell you, Joe is right about the crabcakes, and the fact that you’re giving us each one on the way out as a parting gift!
(Laughter.)
But I do want to thank the bipartisan group of senators that have come together and all the members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus who are here for one purpose, and that’s to find a bipartisan way forward on the infrastructure portion of the administration’s job proposal.
The Problem Solvers Caucus just released today our new bipartisan infrastructure proposal, and it was headed up by our Problem Solvers working group and our leaders, Katko from New York and Conor Lamb from Pennsylvania, and I want to thank them both for their leadership, and all the Problem Solvers who are behind me, the Democrats and Republicans, and there’s 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus, with us is Dean Phillips and Abigail Spanberger, Tom Suozzi, Carolyn Bourdeaux, Jared Golden and Susie Lee, and I also mentioned Conor Lamb. Our new report helps us focus the scope of a bipartisan infrastructure agreement. There are three legs here. The first is how do we focus this down so we can all start our from agreement there? Then as we move forward, we’ll need to look at two other pieces: What should it cost, what do we actually need to spend? And of course how are we going to pay for it?
This will be an ongoing conversation, but the first portion of the scope, which was such a big part of our discussion today, is so critical. The caucus will in the weeks and days ahead continue working around the clock, as we have been, to get a bipartisan deal done on this infrastructure package. It can be done, and as Joe said, it must get done. The survival of our country depends on bipartisan solutions and bipartisan governing. I know that with everyone working together as we have been and will continue in the greatest country in the world, our best days will be ahead.
And I’m so honored to introduce the co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, my good friend from Pennsylvania, Brian Fitzpatrick.
REPRESENTATIVE FITZPATRICK: Governor Hogan, again, on behalf of all of us, thank you for your hospitality, Yumi’s hospitality, the staff is just awesome. Everybody should know that. The Governor has an amazing staff who did a lot of good work. Josh mentioned the Democrat members of our caucus. On the GOP size we have Representatives Katko, Rice, Upton, Gonzalez, Colon, Herrera, Butler, and Valadao, and Taylor.
We’re taking a structured approach here. And as Josh had stated, we’re taking a very structured approach here. Number one is defining infrastructure. Number two is coming up with an overall cost that we are all comfortable with, but that needs to be driven by what we need for each individual bucket of infrastructure, and that needs to be driven by facts and data and evidence and experts, not pulling numbers out of the sky, but actually coming up with the numbers that we need. What is the number that we need for broadband? What is the number that we need for roads and bridges? And have that drive the ultimate outcome. And lastly is how to pay for it. The reality is, we’ll have to come up with a bipartisan solution, which means nobody is going to get everything they want. We’d rather, as we always say, get 80 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing. I want to thank Senator Manchin for doing what he always does, which was inject a whole lot of common sense into the thought process and the solution. We need more of that. And again, thank you, Governor Hogan, for everything you did for us. This is the beginning, not the end. We have a lot of work to did. But we made a lot of good progress. There was a lot of good cross-pollination. As Senator Manchin said, just spending time with each other and hearing each other think is very helpful. Thanks, Governor.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you very much. I know a number of the members of Congress have got to leave to fly back to their districts, some people have got tight schedules. But we’d be happy to take a couple of questions before folks have to roll out. If anybody has any. Never seen such quiet folks…
SPEAKER: What’s the next step, and do you mind highlights one or two examples of Maryland –?
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Sure. I’ll let — maybe one of the Problem Solvers in Congress can jump up here in a second to answer what’s the next step. You know, as several of the speakers said, this really is an important first step, and it’s a very unusual thing, really, when you have governors, senators and Congressmen from both parties sitting down and having actually discussions. It doesn’t happen very often. I can’t remember it happening. So that’s the first step, and agreeing on some general principles about what infrastructure is and what it isn’t, about the size and scope and about the fact that it has to be bipartisan. But there’s a lot more work to be done. We didn’t solve all the problems of exactly what it’s going to cost and how we’re going to pay for it. But we’ve just come up with a set of principles, and we’re going to continue to provide input from the National Governors Association, we’re going to work with all of our leaders in Congress, but really it’s in their court for the House and Senate to figure this house. Maybe Senator Manchin and one of the Problem Solvers from the House will want to talk.
SPEAKER: Examples from Maryland?
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We talked about — I gave the examples in Maryland of how we’ve been able to utilize federal dollars and our state funds along with private sector investment, by building the largest P3 transit project in North America with federal, state, and local dollars and private investment. The traffic relief plan, which is the biggest one in North America, we’re utilizing private dollars. But it’s a balanced approach. We have 800 projects currently under construction in Maryland totaling $9 billion, and that only happens with help from the federal government, state and local governments all working together
With that, we’ll turn it over to maybe Senator Manchin
SENATOR MANCHIN: Let me make sure you know who all was here from the Senate anyway. We had Senator Cornyn from Texas, Senator Collins from Maine, Senator Cassidy from Louisiana, Senator Rosen from Nevada, Senator Romney from Utah, and Senator Young from Indiana.
The thing that’s allowed us to do is basically talk to the people on the front line. Being a former governor, I know that whatever happened in Washington, we will to implement it or live with it or try to make adjustments or ask for waivers to try to make it fit in our scheme of what we needed. We can prevent that from happening if we coordinate what we’re doing. In the Senate we have a working group, we have 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, we call it the G20 group, and we meet consistently, and we have the Problem Solvers with Josh and Brian coming over working with us. So we’re working in a bipartisan, bicameral way. To have the executive branch of the governors, the NGA involved truly completes that triangle. It helps us have good input, so we don’t have redundancies or waste. That’s really what we’re achieving or trying to achieve to set a pathway forward. And I think today was a tremendous start for that.
Josh?
REPRESENTATIVE GOTTHEIMER: I think you covered it. Our goal is not just working Democrats and Republicans, but working with the Senate Democrats and Republicans, as we do, as we did this past winter and going into the new year on the COVID package, and that’s the model, this is the model of how you govern, not just on this issue, but frankly, on every issue, working together across the aisle and across chambers and working with governors and our mayors and our local communities. That’s how you get things done, and that’s how you bring the country together.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Any other questions? Maybe a couple more?
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well, so, we’ve invested more money in the City of Baltimore in transportation than any other jurisdiction in the state. We continue to do that. That’s thanks to the help of the federal government. We’re also building the largest P3 transit system in America, in the Washington metropolitan area, in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties, and it really is a great partnership at the federal, state, and local level and in some cases with the private sector as well. And we couldn’t do it without them. That’s why this summit is so important, it’s why I decided to convene this. I am a national co-chair of no labels, I’ve had the opportunity to work with both the bicameral, the senators who want to work on compromise, with the Problem Solvers in the House, and I led a year-long infrastructure initiative through the NGA with my fellow governors, Governor Northam, and all 50 governors came together on a set of principles. So if we can find bipartisan compromise in Congress on this, I think it’s something that would be applauded by all the governors and would certainly help us here in Maryland.
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well, we have — we presented the NGA plan already to — I presented — you know, talked to President Biden about this in the Oval Office, we presented it to Secretary Buttigieg, I testified before the Senate, and we submitted that to all the folks here. That’s the NGA’s proposals, a lot of which I think there’s agreement on all the governors and I think most of the folks here that those are good principles. Both the folks in the Senate on both sides, and Senator Cassidy unfortunately had to leave right before this, but he and Senator Manchin and their colleagues weighed in with some great stuff in the Senate that I think we agree with, and the Problem Solvers are rolling out their plan today from the House. So we don’t have a detailed plan today. We have a set of principles we all agree op. But I think we’re going to get there. This is a first step in the process.
SENATOR MANCHIN: Let me say one thing, and I think where you’re going with this, and know, the president put out a conceptual plan. Bill’s not been written, but it’s conceptual. 2.25 trillion. You’ve seen that. It’s not only infrastructure which we think of as conventional infrastructure but human structure. We believe we should be step by step. So when I say infrastructure, this is what we have come to understand that we think the greatest need now that can be done in a bipartisan way is conventional infrastructure. Whether it’s the waters, sewers, roads, bridges, internet, things that we know need to be repaired, be fixed, and basically the deferred maintenance has been going on for far too long.
We can move into those other areas also. Now whether there will be as much of a cooperation on that as there is on this — so why don’t you take the greatest need that we have and do it on something that we all agree on? That’s what we’ve come to an agreement on, I think, more than anything else today
SPEAKER: Last question, please —
REPRESENTATIVE FITZPATRICK: I want to offer an additional GOP perspective on it. I want to emphasize that we as the Problem Solvers on the House side have 58 # members, we have 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans. We have a caucus rule that if 75 percent of us agree on a concept, or in this case an infrastructure framework, we as a 58 member centrist bloc in the house agree to get behind it. We have that framework now. The question now is the hard part. Now that we have the framework, we have to start doing those three buckets as Josh and I talked about. We have to come up with the number that we need, and how to get the revenue or close the gaps to cover that. Because we want to be responsible about it. If infrastructure is done the right way, it’s an investment, not an expense. If done the right way. We’ve got to figure out what that right way is, and it takes a lot of work to come up with the numbers and the scope. It doesn’t app happen in a day or a week. It’s going to take a lot of work to get there. But if done the right way and if we make smart investments, it will yield a return for us, not an expense.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We can take one last question, but to follow up on that point, that Congressman Fitzpatrick just talked about, you know, this is a serious thing when you have 58 centrist members of Congress willing to work together and willing to vote in a bloc. I don’t have to tell you that they’re going to have to work with the folks in the Problem Solvers Caucus. You know, with Joe Manchin saying that he wants to work together with all of us in the Senate, you know, with the tight majorities we have, never has it been more important for us to work together in a bipartisan way, and I think we all have agreement that that’s what we want to do.
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I don’t know, we’ll see.
(Laughter.)
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Somebody want to —
SENATOR MANCHIN: The bottom line is, that’s happening as we speak. We’re starting to form that right now. You saw the Republican plan came out. Okay, we’re working in the G20, which is the 10 Ds and 10 Rs who are more inclined to do something on an infrastructure only. So we’ll take the Republican, the Democrats, let’s say the Democrat leadership takes the 2.25 conceptual, puts that into a bill. Usually you find roadblocks there, the same as we did last December when we couldn’t get past half a trillion for the new COVID package from the Republicans, 1.3 from the Democrats, we got together and broke that roadblock and came up with 908 billion.
I envision maybe the same thing happening. But I think the White House is receptive for them to understand that we really truly believe that we should do a conventional infrastructure bill that can be done bipartisan. They have an appetite to want to do something bipartisan. This is doable.
The other things that are conceptual we can work on piece by piece, committee by committee. The only thing I would say on that, in the Senate, the way we work, it has to get back to a committee process to where these bills should go to the committee, have hearings, markups, come back to the Senate floor with an open amendment process which is germane to the subject matter. When you do that, everybody has input, and it brings people together because they get all their concerns and frustrations out through a voting process, not through a dialogue against each other.
REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: Before we leave, I just want to say that, as important infrastructure is for our country, it may be the second most important thing that we did over the last 24 hours. We are Democrats and Republicans, we are governors, we are senators, we are House members, we are men and women who believe in something more than our parties, and that is about the country. All of us concerned about the direction, but all of us committed to doing what the Governor and first lady did for us last night, which is host us at a table. We broke bread. We broke common ground. We got to know each other. We shared our life stories. And through that lens, we achieved a lot in the matter of just a few hours, and I just don’t want that to be lost in this press conference. Because it is possible, it is important, it is necessary, and it can’t be legislated. Every single person in our country can take that same step that the governor and first lady did last night and bring people together. The results and the fruits of that labor are surely delicious. So thank you, everybody.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you.
(End of transcript).
And I’m pleased to report that we had a terrific summit yesterday and today, and we reached agreement on a series of principles that should guide any federal infrastructure package. The first and most important thing that we agree on is that any infrastructure package should be both developed and passed with the support of both Democrats and Republicans.
Second, we agreed that this bipartisan package must include investments in existing physical assets to make our communities more livable and enable us to more safely and efficiently move people, water, energy, and goods across America. Any infrastructure package must also include investments in new physical assets, broadband, digital, and energy technologies, to position America to great good jobs and out-innovate our competitors around the globe in the 21st century.
We agreed that any federal infrastructure package must be focused on physical and digital infrastructure. And we also had a frank and productive and open dialogue on some of the biggest sticking points for any infrastructure bill including the scope of the package, the overall cost, and how it should be paid for. We recognize that forging a bipartisan compromise on these issues will not be easy. But we all believe that it can and that it must be done.
I just want to thank every one of the leaders here behind me. We had a number of others that were with us who had to leave because of schedules, but all of these leaders who joined us here in Annapolis, I want to thank them for coming together with a real sincere desire to reach common ground on this important issue.
So at this time we’re going to have a number of people address you. I’m going to turn it over to my good friend and colleague from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Ralph Northam, who’s going to say a few words.
GOVERNOR NORTHAM: Well, good afternoon, and thank you, Governor Hogan, first of all, for your hospitality. It’s a beautiful day here in Annapolis, and I just want to thank you and your wife for hosting us and bringing us together in a bipartisan manner. It has certainly been a refreshing two days for governors to interact with our members of Congress and to discuss a topic that has been on the minds of us for years and decades, and that is infrastructure. And just to highlight the relationship that I have had over the years with Governor Hogan, we have already set precedent on how we work together state by state, and how we work in a bipartisan manner. We have worked on Metro, we are currently working on the American Legion Bridge, so good things are happening when we all work together.
I think we all agree that infrastructure is a top priority. We had a candid discussion last night and today and talked about our priorities, especially on a state level, and we agreed that this is not a cookie cutter situation. One size doesn’t fit all. Every state brings their priorities. So we agree with our members of Congress that governors need to let Congress know what our needs are, how we’re paying for things now, and how we intend to do that in the future. So it’s a great start. It’s a great initiative when we bring folks from both sides of the aisle together, and the ability for our governors to communicate with Congress really gives me a lot of hope and promise that we will move forward and address a lot of the infrastructure needs, and really be the best stewards that we can of our taxpayer money. So thank you all very much for the opportunity to be here. I’d now like to turn the podium over to our senator from West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin.
SENATOR MANCHIN: Thank you, Governor. Let me just say that what you see, a collection of all of us in public service, you have Democrat and Republican senators, you have Democrat and Republican Congresspeople, and you have Democrat and Republican governors. This is what governing is all about, coming together and finding a common cause. There’s not a greater common cause than infrastructure. If we can’t come together on infrastructure in the most toxic atmosphere we’ve had in Washington, then we’re in trouble
And let me tell you about infrastructure. Infrastructure is what makes this country great. It’s what’s grown this country. It’s where all the opportunity is. It’s where the jobs come from. And we all have the needs, and we all have the ability to fix this. And we’re looking together to find the solutions. Today was a great day. Again, I want to thank Governor Hogan. I want to thank his first lady, and I want to thank the staff. I want to thank all the people in the kitchen who made the greatest Maryland crabcakes I’ve eaten for a long time!
(Laughter.)
It’s just a pleasure to always come back to the oldest state capitol in the United States still actively working, and working hard for all the people in Maryland. But this is something that was very important today. We had great presenters, Governor Hogan’s put a great team together here that really presented the challenges we have, the problems we have. I can tell you this. In Washington, we will be able to come together. I have all the confidence in the world. I think this is truly a bipartisan effort, we’re working in a bipartisan way to put a good infrastructure bill. We can take care of the needs of our country and we can do it in a responsible way, and we also can take care of the opportunities the people of America need, and do it in a fiscally responsible way, and that’s what we’re working towards. So I want to thank everybody here, all of you all for doing such a great job, and all my colleagues. We don’t get together that often. You would think that we’re all in Congress, so the Senate and the House is always together. We’re not. I want to thank No Labels, I want to thank the Problem Solvers and all the people who worked together to give this us opportunity. It’s the greatest times that we have. We need to be doing more of this.
Without further ado, I want to introduce Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a leader of the Problem Solvers from the great state of New Jersey. Josh.
REPRESENTATIVE GOTTHEIMER: Thank you. First, thank you so much, Governor Hogan, thank you for having us, and first lady of the state. I’ll tell you, Joe is right about the crabcakes, and the fact that you’re giving us each one on the way out as a parting gift!
(Laughter.)
But I do want to thank the bipartisan group of senators that have come together and all the members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus who are here for one purpose, and that’s to find a bipartisan way forward on the infrastructure portion of the administration’s job proposal.
The Problem Solvers Caucus just released today our new bipartisan infrastructure proposal, and it was headed up by our Problem Solvers working group and our leaders, Katko from New York and Conor Lamb from Pennsylvania, and I want to thank them both for their leadership, and all the Problem Solvers who are behind me, the Democrats and Republicans, and there’s 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus, with us is Dean Phillips and Abigail Spanberger, Tom Suozzi, Carolyn Bourdeaux, Jared Golden and Susie Lee, and I also mentioned Conor Lamb. Our new report helps us focus the scope of a bipartisan infrastructure agreement. There are three legs here. The first is how do we focus this down so we can all start our from agreement there? Then as we move forward, we’ll need to look at two other pieces: What should it cost, what do we actually need to spend? And of course how are we going to pay for it?
This will be an ongoing conversation, but the first portion of the scope, which was such a big part of our discussion today, is so critical. The caucus will in the weeks and days ahead continue working around the clock, as we have been, to get a bipartisan deal done on this infrastructure package. It can be done, and as Joe said, it must get done. The survival of our country depends on bipartisan solutions and bipartisan governing. I know that with everyone working together as we have been and will continue in the greatest country in the world, our best days will be ahead.
And I’m so honored to introduce the co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, my good friend from Pennsylvania, Brian Fitzpatrick.
REPRESENTATIVE FITZPATRICK: Governor Hogan, again, on behalf of all of us, thank you for your hospitality, Yumi’s hospitality, the staff is just awesome. Everybody should know that. The Governor has an amazing staff who did a lot of good work. Josh mentioned the Democrat members of our caucus. On the GOP size we have Representatives Katko, Rice, Upton, Gonzalez, Colon, Herrera, Butler, and Valadao, and Taylor.
We’re taking a structured approach here. And as Josh had stated, we’re taking a very structured approach here. Number one is defining infrastructure. Number two is coming up with an overall cost that we are all comfortable with, but that needs to be driven by what we need for each individual bucket of infrastructure, and that needs to be driven by facts and data and evidence and experts, not pulling numbers out of the sky, but actually coming up with the numbers that we need. What is the number that we need for broadband? What is the number that we need for roads and bridges? And have that drive the ultimate outcome. And lastly is how to pay for it. The reality is, we’ll have to come up with a bipartisan solution, which means nobody is going to get everything they want. We’d rather, as we always say, get 80 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing. I want to thank Senator Manchin for doing what he always does, which was inject a whole lot of common sense into the thought process and the solution. We need more of that. And again, thank you, Governor Hogan, for everything you did for us. This is the beginning, not the end. We have a lot of work to did. But we made a lot of good progress. There was a lot of good cross-pollination. As Senator Manchin said, just spending time with each other and hearing each other think is very helpful. Thanks, Governor.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you very much. I know a number of the members of Congress have got to leave to fly back to their districts, some people have got tight schedules. But we’d be happy to take a couple of questions before folks have to roll out. If anybody has any. Never seen such quiet folks…
SPEAKER: What’s the next step, and do you mind highlights one or two examples of Maryland –?
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Sure. I’ll let — maybe one of the Problem Solvers in Congress can jump up here in a second to answer what’s the next step. You know, as several of the speakers said, this really is an important first step, and it’s a very unusual thing, really, when you have governors, senators and Congressmen from both parties sitting down and having actually discussions. It doesn’t happen very often. I can’t remember it happening. So that’s the first step, and agreeing on some general principles about what infrastructure is and what it isn’t, about the size and scope and about the fact that it has to be bipartisan. But there’s a lot more work to be done. We didn’t solve all the problems of exactly what it’s going to cost and how we’re going to pay for it. But we’ve just come up with a set of principles, and we’re going to continue to provide input from the National Governors Association, we’re going to work with all of our leaders in Congress, but really it’s in their court for the House and Senate to figure this house. Maybe Senator Manchin and one of the Problem Solvers from the House will want to talk.
SPEAKER: Examples from Maryland?
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We talked about — I gave the examples in Maryland of how we’ve been able to utilize federal dollars and our state funds along with private sector investment, by building the largest P3 transit project in North America with federal, state, and local dollars and private investment. The traffic relief plan, which is the biggest one in North America, we’re utilizing private dollars. But it’s a balanced approach. We have 800 projects currently under construction in Maryland totaling $9 billion, and that only happens with help from the federal government, state and local governments all working together
With that, we’ll turn it over to maybe Senator Manchin
SENATOR MANCHIN: Let me make sure you know who all was here from the Senate anyway. We had Senator Cornyn from Texas, Senator Collins from Maine, Senator Cassidy from Louisiana, Senator Rosen from Nevada, Senator Romney from Utah, and Senator Young from Indiana.
The thing that’s allowed us to do is basically talk to the people on the front line. Being a former governor, I know that whatever happened in Washington, we will to implement it or live with it or try to make adjustments or ask for waivers to try to make it fit in our scheme of what we needed. We can prevent that from happening if we coordinate what we’re doing. In the Senate we have a working group, we have 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, we call it the G20 group, and we meet consistently, and we have the Problem Solvers with Josh and Brian coming over working with us. So we’re working in a bipartisan, bicameral way. To have the executive branch of the governors, the NGA involved truly completes that triangle. It helps us have good input, so we don’t have redundancies or waste. That’s really what we’re achieving or trying to achieve to set a pathway forward. And I think today was a tremendous start for that.
Josh?
REPRESENTATIVE GOTTHEIMER: I think you covered it. Our goal is not just working Democrats and Republicans, but working with the Senate Democrats and Republicans, as we do, as we did this past winter and going into the new year on the COVID package, and that’s the model, this is the model of how you govern, not just on this issue, but frankly, on every issue, working together across the aisle and across chambers and working with governors and our mayors and our local communities. That’s how you get things done, and that’s how you bring the country together.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Any other questions? Maybe a couple more?
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well, so, we’ve invested more money in the City of Baltimore in transportation than any other jurisdiction in the state. We continue to do that. That’s thanks to the help of the federal government. We’re also building the largest P3 transit system in America, in the Washington metropolitan area, in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties, and it really is a great partnership at the federal, state, and local level and in some cases with the private sector as well. And we couldn’t do it without them. That’s why this summit is so important, it’s why I decided to convene this. I am a national co-chair of no labels, I’ve had the opportunity to work with both the bicameral, the senators who want to work on compromise, with the Problem Solvers in the House, and I led a year-long infrastructure initiative through the NGA with my fellow governors, Governor Northam, and all 50 governors came together on a set of principles. So if we can find bipartisan compromise in Congress on this, I think it’s something that would be applauded by all the governors and would certainly help us here in Maryland.
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well, we have — we presented the NGA plan already to — I presented — you know, talked to President Biden about this in the Oval Office, we presented it to Secretary Buttigieg, I testified before the Senate, and we submitted that to all the folks here. That’s the NGA’s proposals, a lot of which I think there’s agreement on all the governors and I think most of the folks here that those are good principles. Both the folks in the Senate on both sides, and Senator Cassidy unfortunately had to leave right before this, but he and Senator Manchin and their colleagues weighed in with some great stuff in the Senate that I think we agree with, and the Problem Solvers are rolling out their plan today from the House. So we don’t have a detailed plan today. We have a set of principles we all agree op. But I think we’re going to get there. This is a first step in the process.
SENATOR MANCHIN: Let me say one thing, and I think where you’re going with this, and know, the president put out a conceptual plan. Bill’s not been written, but it’s conceptual. 2.25 trillion. You’ve seen that. It’s not only infrastructure which we think of as conventional infrastructure but human structure. We believe we should be step by step. So when I say infrastructure, this is what we have come to understand that we think the greatest need now that can be done in a bipartisan way is conventional infrastructure. Whether it’s the waters, sewers, roads, bridges, internet, things that we know need to be repaired, be fixed, and basically the deferred maintenance has been going on for far too long.
We can move into those other areas also. Now whether there will be as much of a cooperation on that as there is on this — so why don’t you take the greatest need that we have and do it on something that we all agree on? That’s what we’ve come to an agreement on, I think, more than anything else today
SPEAKER: Last question, please —
REPRESENTATIVE FITZPATRICK: I want to offer an additional GOP perspective on it. I want to emphasize that we as the Problem Solvers on the House side have 58 # members, we have 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans. We have a caucus rule that if 75 percent of us agree on a concept, or in this case an infrastructure framework, we as a 58 member centrist bloc in the house agree to get behind it. We have that framework now. The question now is the hard part. Now that we have the framework, we have to start doing those three buckets as Josh and I talked about. We have to come up with the number that we need, and how to get the revenue or close the gaps to cover that. Because we want to be responsible about it. If infrastructure is done the right way, it’s an investment, not an expense. If done the right way. We’ve got to figure out what that right way is, and it takes a lot of work to come up with the numbers and the scope. It doesn’t app happen in a day or a week. It’s going to take a lot of work to get there. But if done the right way and if we make smart investments, it will yield a return for us, not an expense.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We can take one last question, but to follow up on that point, that Congressman Fitzpatrick just talked about, you know, this is a serious thing when you have 58 centrist members of Congress willing to work together and willing to vote in a bloc. I don’t have to tell you that they’re going to have to work with the folks in the Problem Solvers Caucus. You know, with Joe Manchin saying that he wants to work together with all of us in the Senate, you know, with the tight majorities we have, never has it been more important for us to work together in a bipartisan way, and I think we all have agreement that that’s what we want to do.
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I don’t know, we’ll see.
(Laughter.)
(Question off mic.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Somebody want to —
SENATOR MANCHIN: The bottom line is, that’s happening as we speak. We’re starting to form that right now. You saw the Republican plan came out. Okay, we’re working in the G20, which is the 10 Ds and 10 Rs who are more inclined to do something on an infrastructure only. So we’ll take the Republican, the Democrats, let’s say the Democrat leadership takes the 2.25 conceptual, puts that into a bill. Usually you find roadblocks there, the same as we did last December when we couldn’t get past half a trillion for the new COVID package from the Republicans, 1.3 from the Democrats, we got together and broke that roadblock and came up with 908 billion.
I envision maybe the same thing happening. But I think the White House is receptive for them to understand that we really truly believe that we should do a conventional infrastructure bill that can be done bipartisan. They have an appetite to want to do something bipartisan. This is doable.
The other things that are conceptual we can work on piece by piece, committee by committee. The only thing I would say on that, in the Senate, the way we work, it has to get back to a committee process to where these bills should go to the committee, have hearings, markups, come back to the Senate floor with an open amendment process which is germane to the subject matter. When you do that, everybody has input, and it brings people together because they get all their concerns and frustrations out through a voting process, not through a dialogue against each other.
REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS: Before we leave, I just want to say that, as important infrastructure is for our country, it may be the second most important thing that we did over the last 24 hours. We are Democrats and Republicans, we are governors, we are senators, we are House members, we are men and women who believe in something more than our parties, and that is about the country. All of us concerned about the direction, but all of us committed to doing what the Governor and first lady did for us last night, which is host us at a table. We broke bread. We broke common ground. We got to know each other. We shared our life stories. And through that lens, we achieved a lot in the matter of just a few hours, and I just don’t want that to be lost in this press conference. Because it is possible, it is important, it is necessary, and it can’t be legislated. Every single person in our country can take that same step that the governor and first lady did last night and bring people together. The results and the fruits of that labor are surely delicious. So thank you, everybody.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you.
(End of transcript).