Pelosi Remarks at Caltrain Electrification Project Groundbreaking
Contact: Ashley Etienne/Caroline Behringer, 202-226-7616
San Francisco – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Governor Jerry Brown, Representatives Anna Eshoo and Jackie Speier, and community leaders for the Caltrain Electrification Project groundbreaking. Below are the Leader's remarks:
Leader Pelosi. Good morning everyone! Let's hear it for [Assemblyman] Phil Ting! Now weren't those wonderful remarks. Thank you Assemblyman Ting for your kind words, for your great leadership. To you, to Assemblyman [Marc] Berman, to [Assemblyman Kevin] Mullin, Senator [Jerry] Hill, Senator [Scott] Weiner, all—our distinguished mayor of San Francisco, Mayor [Ed] Lee, to the governor of California: honors granted. Now we will all be saying their names but honors granted to all of them. I'm honored to be here with my colleagues, Congresswoman Jackie Speier and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, both of whom worked very hard to make this happen, what we're seeing today happen.
Yes, Governor [Jerry] Brown was right. This happened under Barack Obama. [Under] the Obama Administration, we had a three-words slogan about job creation: build, build, build. And today, this morning, is a manifestation of that, adding to all of the things that have been done in our city, Mr. Mayor, under your leadership as well. But this is – just look at this sign, it's so perfect. It is about economic vitality. It is about jobs. Jobs, job creation, to build and to get people to and from work. Sustainability in terms of clean air, taking cars off the road. It is about convenience, quality of life, families so people do not have to spend all that time in their car, instead –
[Train whistle]
Here it comes again! Convenience and it is about capacity because it is not just about what it does today, it is about the foundation it provides for the future. So this is very, very important. It was, again, a hallmark of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. This project was approved, ready to go thanks to the work of so many of you here. It was great that we are here on a day where we can honor the governor's leadership on cap and trade which is again about sustaining our planet.
I want to say special thanks to my colleagues in the House because really this was a fight. It should not have been, it was all ready to go, it was held up. But their persistence, Anna and Jackie and others, just practically every day having to sign one letter or make a certain calls, all the rest to the administration to get this unleashed. It was all done to get it unleashed. There were some obstacles we won't go into, but I thank them, all of them, for their persistence, persistence, persistence in making this happen.
By the way, this electrification initiative at this level of consideration would not have been possible without Congresswoman Eshoo and our colleagues in the area insisting that it be part of any high-speed rail or any other initiative, that this had to be a priority. It was a priority; it had been a priority for the Obama administration and now here we are.
So, I thank all of you for what you have done, both in the public and private sector. This is very, very important and again, it is– look, these trains coming. Whether it is about families getting together, people going to work, products getting to market, we all pin our hopes on public mass transit. It is very, very important to all of us. So, I thank you and I am so proud that we were able to – in our negotiations on the Appropriations bill – to get the money into the bill in addition to the authorization from the Administration to get the money into the bill. That would not have happened without all of you but especially the work of our congressional delegation.
And now, it is my privilege to introduce someone who really took the lead on this. She's a religious person so she'll know when I quote the Bible, ‘ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened to you.' Seek and you shall find her persistence, what made this happen. It would not have happened without her and just before I bring her on, I just want to thank Senator Dianne Feinstein who intervened at a very important time in all of this. We are proud of both of our senators, Senator Harris and Senator Feinstein and our entire Democratic delegation which stood behind this, but Senator Feinstein was very instrumental and I want you to know because I saw it all very close up. I saw the work that Congresswoman Eshoo did on this electrification, whether it was in the negotiations on high speed rail, or whether it was in the appropriations process in Congress, or whether it was persuading the administration to give the go-ahead on what the Obama administration had already done.
So, I want to acknowledge her leadership on that. [Congresswoman] Jackie Speier's leadership on every subject. I have the privilege of sharing the representation of San Francisco, but she takes great pride in having San Mateo also in her jurisdiction, in her representation. But the dynamism, the synergy of the two of them working on this together, with other members, just made it all possible. Our leader in the fight though, was Anna Eshoo.
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