United States Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) will be joined by Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Michigan) and major goods-movement leaders from both the public and private sector at a press conference at 10am on Tuesday, April 21 to call for Congressional passage of a surface transportation reauthorization bill that specifically includes dedicated funding for rebuilding and upgrading the nation’s crumbling freight infrastructure.
The “call to action” event is meant to both elevate the awareness of freight infrastructure investment needs and present Congress with options for addressing those needs, according to Lowenthal’s office.
Lowenthal will discuss his freight infrastructure funding legislation, H.R. 1308, Economy in Motion: The National Multimodal and Sustainable Freight Infrastructure Act, that would implement a user fee on goods movement to create a national freight trust fund dedicated to infrastructure expansion, upgrade and repair. Representatives Lawrence, Dana Rohrabacher and Ann Kirkpatrick are all original co-sponsors of H.R. 1308.
Invited to join Lowenthal and Lawrence to amplify the message of long-term freight transportation funding through their own unique perspectives are USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx, Rohrabacher, Kirkpatrick and representatives from the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors (D.C.), the Southern California Association of Governments, the Port of Long Beach, the Will County Center for Economic Development (IL), Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization (ID), and the Alameda Corridor East Construction Authority (CA).
The Obama Administration recently released Grow America Act 2.0, a six-year bill designed to make strategic investments across the entire transportation spectrum; the proposal suggests a revenue source to pay for these transportation investments. Like Lowenthal, the Administration supports robust investment in multimodal freight infrastructure and prioritizes it within Grow America Act 2.0, according to Lowenthal’s office.
While the two proposals use different methods to fund these strategic freight investments, both are programmatically similar and send a clear message: the time to invest in our nation’s freight infrastructure is now.
The event will take place in the House Triangle, outdoor plaza of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Source: Rep. Lowenthal’s office
