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Earl Blumenauer

Blumenauer: Don’t Let American Streets Remain Unsafe Routes to School

4:34 PM EST on February 15, 2012

Right now the House is debating the GOP leadership's oil drilling-with-a-side-of-highways bill, which may or may not survive the House floor.

Oregon's Earl Blumenauer has a knack for props. This was the image he used to backdrop his impassioned defense of Safe Routes to School this morning during Congressional discussion on the House transportation bill.

A lot of folks are upset about this proposal, which would eliminate dedicated federal funding for transit, biking, and walking, open up some of the country's environmental treasures to oil drilling and delay infrastructure insolvency for all of two years.

Leave it to Oregon's Earl Blumenauer to really let 'em have it. The Hill reports that Blumenauer delivered an impassioned speech late this morning, accompanied by this sign that really hits home.

Some highlights below:

This is a wildly popular program, costing a fraction of a percent of the transportation budget, and it's had a huge impact nationally on our children because it deals with real consequences for them.

Doesn't it make sense to do something about the congestion, the injury, the death and the obesity?

So why are my Republican friends advancing a transportation bill attacking Safe Routes to School, stripping it out, making it an unsafe route to school? Well, it's a fitting metaphor for perhaps the worst transportation bill in history.

Well said, sir.

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