Fresh off his victory in the November election, Congressman Fred Upton stopped by Leader Publications last week for a discussion about several current issues facing Michigan and the nation.

Over the next few days, we will publish his answers to our questions about everything from roads to immigration reform to the racial tension in Ferguson, Missouri.

Q: What can Congress do to help fix the roads in Michigan and the U.S.?

A couple things. We have a particular problem here in Michigan because the state has failed to act in a meaningful way to address the needs that have to be addressed.

We will be doing a major five-year reauthorization bill next spring. I supported the bipartisan effort this past summer when it became clear that neither the House or the Senate will do a multi-year bill. Therefore, a nine month or so extension was passed — that I supported — that takes us into May.

It will be a major point that the transportation committee needs to deal with when the new Congress convenes in January. We will be selecting the members from that committee Monday. I am hoping that we will add another Michigander to that committee. I was once on it (transportation committee) when I was first elected.

It was the Upton amendment that increased the amount of revenue for every state. We were then getting 72 cents back on every dollar we sent to Washington from the gas tax. The Upton amendment moved it to 90 cents. That is still in place. It is about 91 cents now. For us, that is hundreds of millions of dollars that otherwise before went to other states.

Hopefully we will have one of our freshman legislators coming in to get on that committee. Come May, hopefully we are close to getting a bi-partisan bill done through the House and the Senate to do a five-year bill.

Our (Michigan’s) roads suck, they do. In large part it is because we’ve had some brutal weather. Our roads take a pounding. Michigan’s truck weights are double the national average. We have the freeze and the thaws. Last week, on I-94, you could put pumpkins in some of those (pot)holes. Big ones. The $5 pumpkins, not the $2 ones.

So, truck weights hurt us, the weather hurt us and the failure to pursue legislation in Lansing to get the job done.

I don’t mean to throw our state legislators under the bus. I think there is a decent chance that Lansing will adopt something in their lame-duck session.

One thing I’d like to see happen is as we all fill up our cars with gas that all of the money collected needs to go to roads, highways and bridges.

 

Q: What are your thoughts on President Barack Obama going alone to pass immigration reform?

I support immigration reform. The system is broken. Not only for employers, but the people that are here. The longer it takes, the longer it perpetuates a broken system that works for nobody.

You need to fix it with a bi-partisan effort. What the president did last week sets us back a little bit. It will be harder to pass a bill because of what he did by executive action. Even the Washington Post argued two weeks ago to let the new Congress get started and see if they can do it.

I think the better approach would have been (for the president) to say all right, you’ve got a new Congress and a new Senate… pick the date and if you don’t send me something by then, then I’m going alone. As we try to figure out where the votes are to get things done we will lose some people we might otherwise have had because they are distrustful of where the president is. It sets us back.

But we need to deal with it. It shouldn’t be a big 1,000-page bill that nobody reads or can find something to vote against. We ought to have the individual bills one at a time so people understand them.

It starts with border security. Guess what, in the House the homeland security actually passed a bill last year that every Republican and Democrat voted for on border security.

We need a system for our international companies that need workers, higher-educated folks, that come in and work there knowing that they can move from place to place, country to country.

We need to deal with the dreamers. It wasn’t their fault — maybe they came at age 3 and they are 24 now. They are here and they don’t have a place to return home to. They speak only English, they have no clue where they came from necessarily, so we need to fix that.

We need to deal with the undocumented workers. We need to encourage them to tell us who they are and where they are. We aren’t sending 111 million people back. There are a lot of people that would like to see that happen, but it isn’t going to happen. So let us figure out who they are, where they are and make sure they don’t have a felony, make sure their back taxes are paid and that whatever they are doing now they are paying their taxes. If they want to become a citizen they go to the back of the line. They aren’t going to get cuts. We know only about 40 percent of them want to become a citizen, so they don’t vote unless they become a citizen. They learn English and civics and that process doesn’t change. Our ag workers, our farms — we need people. Come asparagus through apples — our farms can’t survive without a migrant work force. They will tell you that probably 90 percent of them are illegally here.

You have to have a system that works. I do believe that the votes are there to do these things legislatively.

This is something that needs to be legislated, not something that is by executive order. I think most Americans support the idea that we do have a problem and that it is Congress’ job to work with the President to get it fixed. Not have him arbitrarily decide how it is going to be.

The president did say to pass a bill and he is right. My message, when I return to Washington next week, is we need to start working on one. I am hopeful we can do that, which is one step below optimistic.