Hire More Heroes Act of 2015--Continued

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the freight division of the DRIVE Act, the highway transportation bill that is under consideration before us at the moment.

The freight provisions represent the combined efforts of both the Commerce Committee, which I have the honor of chairing, and the Committee on Environment and Public Works. To create this division, we incorporate a number of provisions from legislation offered by Senator Cantwell, Senator Markey, Senator Booker, Senator Murray, and the administration's GROW AMERICA Act proposal. We worked very hard to incorporate and make this a bipartisan product. We took into consideration suggestions that were made by our colleagues, many of whom serve on the Commerce Committee and some who don't, but we got to a point where we feel as if we had a good product that incorporates the best ideas--not everything, obviously, that everybody wanted but that addressed many of the issues that pertained to our particular part of this legislation.

The language included in the Commerce Committee's freight program also drew from recommendations made by the Department of Transportation's nonpartisan National Freight Advisory Committee--another entity we looked to and consulted with respect to these particular provisions of the bill.

Because of our Nation's vast transportation network, freight can move by rail, it can move by aircraft, it can move by truck, and it can move by ship. It is multimodal. Under the bipartisan legislation before the Senate, freight-planning efforts will be concentrated under the Secretary of Transportation.

This is to reflect the multimodal nature of how goods are transported and to ensure the involvement of various agencies which regulate different forms of transportation is properly coordinated.

Because freight moves from truck to rail to port, freight planning must consider these connections, and it must include the development of a strategy to expand capacity and to increase efficiency to meet growing demand. This is especially true when it comes to focusing infrastructure investment decisions. Growing demand indicates and fuels a growing economy. We need a plan to handle the significant growth of freight traffic we expect in the coming years.

The Department of Transportation notes that, by 2040, our transportation system is projected to haul an additional 9 billion tons of freight. That represents a 45 percent increase over what we move today. As our economy recovers and continues to grow, we will continue to need additional freight infrastructure. The freight network serves our import and export needs and is a critical element of our economic competitiveness.

Bottlenecks and delays have significant economic cost. Freight is, by nature, not just a highway problem. Airports, ports, and railroads connect farms, manufacturing centers, and the markets they serve.

Freight needs are not just urban issues. They are also very important for rural America. Advancing agricultural freight projects is necessary for the economies of many States, so ensuring planning and funding for these projects is also critical. Keeping freight transportation costs low keeps American farmers competitive in the global marketplace.

In the winter of 2014, South Dakota faced significant challenges moving grain from the State due to congestion in the rail network. When the freight couldn't move, farmers weren't getting paid. Commodities faced spoilage due to a lack of available storage space.

Agriculture is the leading driver of South Dakota's economy. Delays and the significant increased costs of moving grain by rail negatively impacted the pocketbooks of many of the farmers in my State. This, in turn, reduced Main Street's bottom line as well.

More recently, the West Coast port slowdowns delayed shipments to and from stores in South Dakota and across the country. Agricultural products for export were delayed, and imports of products from lumber, medical supplies, and automobiles to basic retail goods were delayed. This was an unforced error that harmed our economy for way too many months.

This labor strife underscored the interconnected nature of our transportation system and how vital our freight infrastructure is to each and to every State in this country. In fact, the resulting strife was widely cited as a contributing cause of the U.S. economy actually shrinking in the first quarter of 2015.

Protecting our competitiveness is at the core of this legislation's freight program that was developed between the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and my colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Planning for and fixing our freight network will create and maintain jobs over the long term. Reducing delays and lowering the price of freight transportation serves the entire supply chain and, ultimately, the American consumer.

That is why the freight division in the DRIVE Act is so important. The bill improves the planning process, engaging States and stakeholders to help plan for future freight needs. States will provide a forward-looking plan to address these freight needs step by step. These plans will develop investment strategies and prioritize projects for funding.

The bill's consolidated strategy that plans for both highway projects and multimodal projects is a significant improvement over what we have today--or the status quo. In addition, the Environment and Public Works Committee developed a highway trust fund formula program that will support critical projects in every State. In the first year alone, the bill provides $450 million of grant funding to assist with these critical investments.

Projects to improve rail grade crossings, port facilities, and connections between freight modes of transportation will have access to these new resources. This will reduce the time and the cost of moving goods.

The Coalition for America's Gateways and Trade Corridors noted that the planning and strategy outlined in the bill is ``a significant step forward for multimodal freight planning and policy.'' The American Association of Port Authorities says: ``Elevating a policy for freight within your legislation sends a strong message that freight must continue to be a priority and that planning, funding, and the establishment of a multimodal freight network are critical for the economic growth of our nation.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full statements of these two organizations I just mentioned.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the legislation before the Senate is a critically important part of addressing our Nation's current and future transportation investments. As Senator Cantwell often says: Freight can't wait.

The DRIVE Act includes these critical freight provisions that will help our economy and lead to job creation. Strengthening our freight program is yet one more reason to support this legislation.

Mr. President, I hope before all is said and done in the Senate we will complete action on this legislation this week and get many of these provisions, which are so important to our economy, so important to jobs, and so important to America's competitiveness, passed into law.

Of course, first we have to get action by the House of Representatives in order to get it to the President's desk, but the work that has gone into this is the product of a lot of various Members and committees, those from the stakeholder community offering their input and consultation to get us to the point we are today where I think we have a product we can be proud of and that we can say actually will help address the freight challenges and the needs we have across this country and make our economy even more competitive.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source