Administration, Congress Ramp Up Infrastructure Focus, Says AAPA
President Barack Obama’s proposal to boost U.S. infrastructure with a $302 billion, four year surface transportation reauthorization would help increase U.S. competitiveness globally and foster growth in an infrastructure sector that generates more than 13 million U.S. jobs, said the American Association of Port Authorities in a Feb. 26 press release. The reauthorization would provide $10 billion multimodal freight grant program for rail, highway and port projects, permanent authorization of the Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic Recovery and $4 billion to encourage transportation infrastructure investment, including through the Transportation Investment Financing and Innovation Act program, said AAPA. The draft tax reform legislation released on Feb. 26 by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., would also deliver $126.5 billion to the Highway Trust Fund, said AAPA.
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“The overwhelmingly bipartisan passage of water resources legislation in both the Senate and the House last year, the importance President Obama continues to express in investing in America’s ports, and the many calls from policymakers on both sides of the aisle on the unquestioned need to improve America’s transportation infrastructure make us hopeful that all parties will be able to work together to identify a means to provide the needed investments in port-related infrastructure,” said AAPA President Kurt Nagle. Bicameral conference continues between the Senate Water Resources and Development Act, S-601, and the sister House Water Resources Reform and Development Act, HR-3080 (see 13120425).