Remarks on High Speed Rail

Thank you. (Applause.) I promise these comments will be shorter than the ride -- (laughter) -- a ride, Mr. President, I've taken about a thousand times with Rob Andrews and Frank Lautenberg and others in the Northeast Corridor. But what gem we've had in the Northeast Corridor. It's time it gets extended throughout the country and improved.

Mr. Secretary, thank you. You know, we often refer to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as I've been going around the country -- shorthand I call it the Recovery Act, Mr. President, for short. But today, we're here to talk about the other part of the effort, the reinvestment -- the reinvestment part of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the commitment to building our nation's future.

And you see while the vast majority of what we're doing in the Recovery Act is about short-term job creation -- as it should be, and is our top priority -- we also set aside some funds to build America's long-term economic future, which you all understand very well, assembled in this room.

And we're making a down payment today, a down payment on the economy for tomorrow, the economy that's going to drive us in the 21st century in a way that the other -- the highway system drove us in the mid-20th century. And I'm happy to be here. I'm more happy than you can imagine -- (laughter) -- to talk about a commitment that, with the President's leadership, we're making to achieve the goal through the development of high-speed rail projects that will extend eventually all across this nation. And most of you know that not only means an awful lot to me, but I know a lot of you personally in this audience over the years, I know it means equally as much to you.

With high-speed rail system, we're going to be able to pull people off the road, lowering our dependence on foreign oil, lowering the bill for our gas in our gas tanks. We're going to loosen the congestion that also has great impact on productivity, I might add, the people sitting at stop lights right now in overcrowded streets and cities. We're also going to deal with the suffocation that's taking place in our major metropolitan areas as a consequence of that congestion. And we're going to significantly lessen the damage to our planet. This is a giant environmental down payment.

All in all, we're going to make travel in this country leaner and a whole lot cleaner. And as we look to the future, we're going to ensure that we can travel through the system that is sound, secure and able to handle full-speed-ahead progress for this new economy.

You know, as it's been mentioned often, I'm not sure it's good or bad, but my father referred to my many commutes -- it exceeded over 7,900, they tell me -- he said one day before he died -- he said, you know, honey -- he said, "That is the definition of a misspent adulthood, sitting on a train." (Laughter.)

But I've -- I have, like many in this room, devoted most of my career to doing what I can to support America's rail systems. So I'm really proud to be part of an administration led by a man who has real vision; real vision about how to not only transform this country generally, but transform our transportation system in a fundamental way. It's about time we took those railways and made them the national treasures they should be. They're the best way to reconnect and connect communities to each other to move us all forward in the 21st century.

And many people deserve credit for this: the great congressional leaders who've been introduced today, many of you -- if I started going through the audience, the people I've known who have been working in the vineyards in this, we'd be here all day, Mr. President. But there are so many critical aspects of this, so many supporters in state capitals among the cities, among the governors.

But on behalf of those of us who've been waiting for this day for decades, Mr. President, I want to pay particular thanks to three people. And the first is Secretary LaHood for his leadership and vision. He jumped right into this job and he didn't miss a step, didn't miss a beat, and was ready to go from day one. And this is very uncharacteristic of me, Mr. President, but I want to thank Rahm Emanuel. (Laughter.) Not only as smart as a devil, not only as a former congressman, I believe, Mr. President, it was Rahm's tenacious, tenacious persistence that led to getting this high-speed rail funding in the Recovery Act. It was at your direction, but I'm not sure it would have been able to have been done without Rahm. And third, to the man who in this area is, as so many others, has turned the years of talk in Washington into a season of action, President Barack Obama.

Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the man who's making this possible. And this will be one of the many parts of a great legacy he's going to leave -- President Barack Obama. (Applause.)