Senators Lautenberg, Murray and Cantwell, along with the staff of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation deserve applause and congratulations for bringing forth a well-constructed approach to address both near-term and long-range needs of our nation’s goods movement network. Now, thanks to Representatives Sires, Reichert, Smith, and Richardson, companion legislation has been introduced in the House.

For many good reasons that have been well articulated in this Forum to date, the FREIGHT Act deserves support. But we should all recognize that this is the start of the conversation and before we reach a conclusion, many other voices will be heard and elements added to fully round out the bill.

The concerns expressed in this Forum seem to fall into 4 main categories:

1. The bill fails to address extensive highway improvements.

2. It is inadequate, because it isn’t the full authorization.

3. The funding source is not addressed.

4. It creates more, and unnecessary, bureaucracy within USDOT.

The response to the first three of these is that we are only at the start of the process. As we all know, when dealing with legislation, strategy is all about the art of the possible. The jurisdictional constraints of the Commerce Committee call for targeting the specific freight infrastructure identified in the bill and the bill sponsors made a strategic decision to stay within their purview and leave certain issues (including funding) unaddressed so that the legislation would have the opportunity to advance so far as the Committee’s options permit. Putting this bill on the table opens the opportunity to engage with the other committees of jurisdiction to fill in the blanks.

We should keep in mind that Chairman Oberstar’s authorization bill calls for a freight formula program that is limited to highways and, while the details remain to be defined, taken together with the FREIGHT Act, the structure of a complementary and holistic approach begins to take shape. We do need to move a comprehensive surface authorization forward, but, for now, mastering one dish may be more fulfilling than trying to serve up the entire buffet.

Jeff Shane and Emil Frankel both suggest that the logical funding source is a freight-based user fee and now, with the new program’s scope presented in legislation, the door is open to address the question with Senate Finance and House Ways and Means. Furthermore, this discussion will be much better informed by the NCFRP report due out this fall, “New Dedicated Revenue Mechanisms for Freight Transportation Investment.” This study is specifically tasked with examining non-fuel tax options for addressing all elements of the nation’s freight transportation infrastructure.

Finally, while I am not in a position to dispute our former Under Secretary for Policy on the subject of USDOT bureaucracy, I must question conclusion that the planning and development components of the bill are unnecessary and that establishing a freight office within OST would slow down the implementation of the freight infrastructure grant program. The language establishing the grant program is a separate title and independent of the establishment of the planning and development office in DOT – in fact, the mandate for the grant program has a much shorter timeframe than that requiring the development of a National Freight Strategic Plan, one year as opposed to two. The experience of the overwhelming number and high quality of proposals submitted under the TIGER Grant program demonstrated that there is a sufficient backlog of worthy freight projects to fully subscribe a dedicated grant program while work on a strategic plan moves ahead.

The Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, along with the Freight Stakeholder Coalition, has long called both for the development of a national multimodal freight strategic plan and the establishment of a multimodal freight office within the Office of the Secretary. The FREIGHT Act of 2010 would not only put these institutions in place, but would also hold them accountable for making measurable improvements to the system’s reliability, safety, environmental sustainability, and connectivity to markets and freight generators. Rather than creating more bureaucracy, to me, this sounds like a business plan for ensuring our nation’s economic future.

The responsibility of the federal government to provide for the unhindered movement of freight and goods between the several states is one of the clearest and most widely accepted elements of national policy. The need to break down interstate barriers to trade and commerce was one of the driving forces for the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and was the basis for the Interstate Commerce Clause. Throughout American history, based on this interest, a series of national programs was adopted from the "internal improvements" of roads and canals, to land grants for the transcontinental railroads, and, in the 20th Century, to the Interstate Highway System.

Yet, in recent decades, even with the explosion of international trade, logistics, and global supply chains, neither the executive branch nor Congress has developed broad and coherent policies and programs for restoring the aging, deteriorating, and congested transportation facilities, on which critical interstate freight movements depend, or for correcting the severe bottlenecks and inadequate intermodal connections that inhibit efficient and productive interstate commerce. The initiatives that have been undertaken have either been on an ad hoc basis (such as the Alameda Corridor) or have been imperfectly implemented (such as SAFETEA-LU's Projects of National and Regional Significance).

What is needed in the area of freight and goods movement is a fundamental reform of the federal programmatic structure, so that scarce national resources can be targeted on those freight programs and projects that offer the greatest promise of national economic and energy benefits and returns. To that end, the focus of such a program should be the alleviation of key freight and intermodal bottlenecks and the restoration and enhanced operation of exisiting transportation facilities and systems. In addition, under such a reformed program structure, federal freight-related resources should be used to leverage state, local, and private investments.

In its June 2009 report, "Performance Driven," the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP) emphasized that economic growth, national connectivity, and energy security should be key goals of national transportation policy and investment, and recommended the establishment of a competitive program to enhance interstate and regional mobility and connectivity across all modes. Improved freight transportation would obviously be a critical purpose and element of such a program.

Such an initiative should, as NTPP recommended, be "bottom-up," that is, designed at the state, multi-state, and corridor levels. These comprehensive and strategic state or local programs, to be supported in part by federal resources, should integrate a range of individual projects, investments, and actions, and, though designed at the state and local levels, should demonstrate how national goals will be achieved.

Two other essential elements should be addressed in any such freight-oriented initiative: first, how effectively will federal funds be used to leverage state, local, and private investments? And, second (as Jeff shane has pointed out so effectively in his very comprehensive response to this question), how will this federal freight initiative be funded? NTPP(as have several others) has proposed that this initiative be supported by a mode-neutral freight fee of some sort.

Even in the absence of federal legislation, we can make a start, in building such a freight program. More important than creating a new office and a new Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. DOT can put resources into collecting data, into defining metrics, and into refining analytical tools, so that we can make informed judgmetns about the most beneficial programs, can target available federal resources on the investments that offer the greatest promises of national returns, and can hold sponsors accountable for achieving outcomes, consistent with the promised benefits. It is these building blocks that will allow us to make a start on a comprehensive and effecitive national freight program.

I can understand that Greg Cohen is concerned that the FREIGHT Act is not weighted toward highways to the degree that he would like, but his points about committee jurisdiction seem somewhat contradictory. On one hand he criticizes the bill for not being comprehensive because it was written by a committee that does not have explicit jurisdiction over highways (although it does actually govern interstate commerce). But then his solution is to have a freight bill written by a committee that only has jurisdiction over highways.

That argument misses the point of a comprehensive freight bill. The truth is that highway funding has long been one of the only available tools that states could use to address ports and freight movement. The FREIGHT Act makes a concerted effort to invest in the other portions of our freight network that we’ve neglected for too many years, while also ensuring that our highway networks function smoothly.

The Act doesn’t prescribe which modes to invest in. Rather, it establishes clear, measurable benchmarks for what these scarce taxpayer dollars must accomplish.

Not only would this finally give us a national freight policy for the first time in our nation’s history, but the federal government would be held accountable for the money entrusted to them to meet goals like reducing delays of goods, increasing the reliability of travel time on major freight corridors, making our freight system safer, and drastically cutting emissions — by 40 percent by 2030.

This program would kill two birds with one stone, making smart investments to improve goods movement while simultaneously reducing related community impacts.

The point of the Act is not to pick winners and losers in the eternal competition among mode-centric partisans, but to provide a framework for measuring success and improvement in freight movement across the country, and then give states and localities the money and the flexible tools they need to meet those goals.

America's freight railroads applaud Senators Lautenberg, Cantwell and Murray for laying out a competitive, results-driven policy for the nation’s freight transportation system. The importance of freight transportation planning has long been overlooked in legislation governing the nation’s transportation system and the FREIGHT Act should serve as a cornerstone for the reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU.

The benchmarks set forth in the FREIGHT Act are outcome-oriented and will ensure that public investments in the nation’s freight transportation system will produce tangible public benefits. Freight railroads are well-poised to help meet the goals envisioned by the Senators, and outlined in this bill. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, railroads are 1.9 to 5.5 times more fuel-efficient than our trucking partners which translates to fewer harmful emissions, improved air quality and reduced reliance on foreign oil. Railroads also serve as the foundation for the nation’s passenger rail system which provides the public with more transportation options, interconnected communities, and greater transportation efficiency.

Increased investment in our nation’s rail system will pay dividends to the public well into the future.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) believes that a freight program needs to be created in the next Surface Transportation Authorization. In our legislative recommendations and in our report issued in July titled Unlocking Freight, we call for action by Congress to address “a freight transportation capacity crisis” which affects all modes: highways, railroads, ports, inland waterways, airports, and border crossings.

AASHTO commends Senators Lautenberg, Murray, and Cantwell for introducing the “FREIGHTAct” in the Senate, and Congressmen Sires, Cohen and Smith and Congresswoman Richardson who introduced the same bill in the House. It recognizes that freight transportation is essential to national prosperity and international competitiveness. There are a number of provisions of the bill with which we agree, including the call for development of National Freight Transportation Policy, the creation of an Office of Freight Planning and Development, and a freight infrastructure grant program.

However, there are areas where further work is needed. The bill’s freight infrastructure grant program proposes funding freight improvements including highway connectors to ports and terminals, but no other highway freight improvements. This is more than just a committee jurisdiction issue. Any grant program should be broad enough to cover all freight needs including highway freight needs. The freight transportation network – all modes – is a system that cannot function without adequate highway capacity. In 2005, 92.5 % of freight by value moved by truck. Over the next 20 years, even after as high a proportion of long-haul freight as feasible has been shifted from truck to rail, the percentage of freight by value carried by truck is expected to increase to over 94%. Highway improvements will be essential.

In addition, any freight bill needs to recognize and acknowledge the partnership role of states in meeting freight transportation needs, as reflected in the 100-year partnership with the federal government on the delivery of a national roads system. The states, which are sovereign entities under our Constitution, enable the formation of ports and airports, own and operate the major highway facilities and facilitate intermodal freight traffic and are engaged in some rail financing. Therefore, the role of states – and their departments of transportation -- is one of a partner, not a stakeholder.

We hope to work with the FREIGHT Act’s sponsors to improve its approach and to work with the authorizing committees in the Senate and House to develop a freight program in the next authorization that addresses key needs. To achieve a fully integrated multi-modal freight system, AASHTO also proposes that the Federal government:

• Define the national freight system and its needs
• Support multi-state freight corridor planning organizations
• Create a state freight transportation program with revenues from the Highway Trust Fund, and
• Create a national freight corridors investment fund with new revenues from outside the Highway Trust Fund

At a time when the vitally needed and overdue reauthorization of our surface transportation programs remains incomprehensibly beyond reach, spotlighting the importance of goods movement through a free-standing bill ought to be a good thing. America’s capacity to move goods efficiently – essential to our global competitiveness – will be increasingly tested as our economy recovers. Moreover, this bill differs from earlier efforts to legislate transportation policy in some important and salutary ways: Like DOT’s much-heralded TIGER Grant program, as Mort Downey has noted, it contemplates the funding of the most important projects through competitive grants administered through a data-driven selection process. It emphasizes the need to “leverage” federal investments. It highlights the importance of “partnerships” (including public-private). And it calls for an “outcome-oriented, performance-based approach” to the evaluation of proposed projects. It would be nice to see those themes featured in the next surface reauthorization act, whenever Congress gets around to passing one.

Ultimately, however – although it pains me to say it -- the bill is a disappointment. It would be a disappointment even if the immediate complaints about modal equity were successfully addressed. Here’s why.

First, despite the recommendations of two Congressionally mandated commissions and a growing number of other studies and reports, the bill leaves the most important question unanswered: How are we going to pay for these projects? Surely a freight-based user fee will have to be part of any major new program for improving the efficiency and reliability of goods movement in America. This bill could have said that out loud and thus served as a vehicle for launching the essential funding debate in earnest. It was a missed opportunity.

In that connection, it is surprising that, with so much emphasis on “leveraging,” the bill doesn’t expand the availability of DOT loan guarantees – the most effective means of leveraging federal dollars by far. DOT has used the full faith and credit of the United States to stimulate a lot of capacity expansion without ever writing a check. Merely authorizing increased appropriations to the TIFIA and RRIF programs to cover the required credit risk premiums would make a huge difference. Freight projects are uniquely positioned to benefit from this tool.

But my biggest problem with the bill is that it would drown the Department and its client agencies in process. The bill’s nicely designed core program – “National Freight Infrastructure Investment Grants” – could be deployed far more quickly and effectively (assuming that the resources have been identified) if it weren’t buried in so much new and unnecessary bureaucratic machinery.

A few cases in point:

The bill would create a new Assistant Secretary for Freight Planning and Development. Please! DOT does not need another assistant secretary. The Under Secretary for Policy and the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy are specifically charged with addressing and coordinating freight policy, and they do so within the larger context of our national transportation policy. (Recent testimony on freight policy by Under Secretary Roy Kienitz and Assistant Secretary Polly Trottenberg can be found, respectively, at http://testimony.ost.dot.gov/test/kienitz2.htm and http://testimony.ost.dot.gov/test/trottenberg1.pdf.)

DOT already has freight-specific institutions within the organization that serve as effective champions. The Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Freight Management and Operations is probably the most important of these, and it works cooperatively with other DOT modal administrations and the Secretary’s office to ensure that freight issues are getting the appropriate measure of attention. Indeed, its Director, Tony Furst, has been working on detail to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation for the past five months. For access to a treasure trove of information and tools relating to goods movement assembled by the Office of Freight Management, go to http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/index.cfm.

The bill would require the Secretary to develop a host of “investment data and planning tools.” Upon examination, however, they would merely duplicate a lot of existing Executive Branch requirements, including those of NEPA, Executive Order 12893 (1994), OMB Circulars A-4 and A-94, and more.

The bill would also establish a lot of new freight-related data requirements. But DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics has published a monthly Freight Transportation Services Index since 2004. The next release will be announced today at 11:30 a.m (it’s always the second Wednesday of the month) and will cover activity through the end of June. Find it at http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2010/bts038_10/html/bts038_10.html. BTS constantly strives to make its information – including the Commodity Flow Survey -- more granular and useful to planners, economists, and policy makers.

The bill would require DOT to develop a “National Freight Transportation Strategic Plan,” ignoring entirely the rolling strategic planning process long established at the Department (and all federal agencies) under the Government Performance and Results Act. DOT doesn’t need parallel strategic planning exercises; addressing freight within the existing process would be far more sensible.

Finally, the bill's prospects in Congress are hopelessly complicated by the inclusion of controversial goals relating to safety, climate change, and air, water, and noise pollution – public policy objectives that are even harder to legislate than transportation program authorizations.

When DOT has the authority, the resources, and the discretion to fund the most worthy projects, freight does very well; about half of the $1.5 billion in TIGER Grant money went to freight-related projects without any quantified Congressional mandate in that regard. As written, the proposed FREIGHT Act would compel DOT to squander enormous amounts of time and energy in standing up a new organization, engaging in a duplicative strategic planning process, recreating the Department’s already valuable freight data program, drafting progress reports to Congress, etc. We don’t need any of that. What we need are (1) a simple, competitive discretionary program for supporting worthy freight-related projects using the array of proven financial incentives that DOT thoroughly understands, and (2) a reliable source of deficit-neutral funding along the lines recommended by just about every recent commission that's looked at the issue. A bill that delivers those two elements – particularly if it’s part of a comprehensive surface reauthorization bill -- would be something to celebrate.

P.S. Two worthwhile freight-specific proposals sent to Congress by the Bush Administration unaccountably ended up on the cutting room floor during the deliberations over SAFETEA-LU: (1) a requirement that every state designate a new “freight coordinator” within its transportation agency to champion goods movement at the state and local levels; and (2) a new “set-aside” in the federal highway program that would reserve 2 percent of a state’s formula grant money for the improvement of deteriorating intermodal connectors – the vital links to ports, rail facilities, and other freight-handling facilities. (Only when a governor certified to DOT that the state’s connectors were up to standard would the monies in the set-aside be available for other highway purposes.) Congress should revisit these two essentially cost-free ideas as part of any effort to improve our freight transportation system. Neither is included in the proposed FREIGHT legislation.

This is a guest post by Kathryn Phillips, director of the California Transportation and Air Initiative at the Environmental Defense Fund. Phillips works on federal transportation policy for the organization, including the FREIGHT Act.

America’s freight transportation system is an environmental and health hazard that cries out for reform.

It emits enough smog-producing and toxic diesel pollution to smother thousands of Americans to death each year. The freight system’s pollution increases health care costs by tens of billions of dollars annually in California alone. The system spews about 500 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually; fouls rivers and harbors with dirty ballast, leaking fuel, and other waste; and eats up wildlife habitat, threatening the survival of endangered and threatened species.

Given this list of environmental assaults, a Martian landing on Earth might wonder why we keep using this outdated freight transportation system. The answer is embarrassing: Americans have failed to invest in upgrading the system to make it work at the level demanded.

Moving products around is a necessity, not an option. Freight transportation delivers food to the table and products to the shops that keep commerce running. But breathing isn’t an option, either, and until we clean up the freight system, one need is pitted against another. This competition between two needs is unnecessary and immoral. No American should have to suffer from lung disease to support another American’s ability to buy electronics shipped from across the country or from across the sea.

The FREIGHT Act recently introduced in both houses of Congress is a significant step toward recognizing that America’s freight system must be updated to improve the system’s environmental performance. The bill:

1. Establishes national freight improvement goals, environmental goals and other performance goals to improve freight’s reliability.


2. Elevates freight to a level of attention it deserves within the U.S. Department of Transportation.


3. Creates a competitive grant program for funding improvements in some of the most troubling pollution and congestion hotspots in the freight system: the hubs and gateways where various transportation modes congregate.

The bill is not comprehensive and it is not a replacement for the federal transportation bill reauthorization. It is intended to address specific problem spots within the freight system. It is also designed to be mode neutral. All the key land and sea freight modes—ships, barges, rail, trucks—will benefit from investment in the hubs and gateways eligible for funding through the bill.

The bill is not funded yet. How it will be funded is part of the debate its introduction invites. For the moment, though, the key challenge will be to get the substance right. From an environmental perspective, the bill is on the right track, although some terms and goals could use clearer definition.

The freight transportation system must be updated to allow Americans to compete in a global economy and breathe clean air on a planet not overwhelmed by greenhouse gas pollution. We have the technology to accomplish these goals. Good examples of freight projects that simultaneously improve freight’s reliability and environmental performance are found around the world, including in the U.S.

The FREIGHT Act’s sponsors in the Senate and the House deserve kudos for lighting a path to get to that better system.

The FREIGHT Act has the potential to be an important step in the right direction for nation’s surface transportation needs. Its goals address both the immediate and the long-term needs of the system—reducing congestion and delays, increasing timely delivery of goods and services, reducing fatalities, being more efficient and better for the environment, and improving intermodal connections.

However, it only addresses the needs of freight transportation.

Goods and services move across the nation slowly and inefficiently for the same reason millions of people sit in traffic or squeeze into overcrowded trains and buses: the infrastructure we have cannot meet the demands we place on it. Without a renewed comprehensive policy and an increased dedicated revenue stream for the nation’s surface transportation system, the FREIGHT Act alone won’t be able to make a significant difference.

We’re already so far behind in updating our infrastructure that attacking the problem in a piecemeal fashion with uncoordinated policies will only exacerbate the situation. To develop infrastructure that can support our economy and nation into the future we need a new, comprehensive surface transportation policy that looks at all modes of transportation.

Blending the FREIGHT Act’s goals into a broader approach is a better way to get the biggest, and most sustainable, bang for our buck.

The FREIGHT Act is one more step in the right direction toward enacting and implementing a national freight plan that looks at the big picture nationwide and addresses bottlenecks in a coordinated and systematic fashion. Chairman Oberstar’s reauthorization framework was a recent big step; TIGER has been another. The more steps sooner, the better. Even if this moves pre-surface transportation reauthorization, we need to charge ahead; though to be truly comprehensive and functional, our freight and other surface transportation planning should not be done independently.

We continue to hear that America will never have a coordinated, federally-driven freight plan like Canada and other countries. The federal government does not want to pick winners and losers; thereby we all lose. We have to get beyond that thinking or other countries are going to eat our lunch. The globalized world of freight is an international competition that will only get tougher, at the expense of US jobs. I would therefore propose to push even further in the direction that the FREIGHT Act moves, recognizing and investing in the already-established national freight corridors and a strategy to support their enhancement.

On July 22, I participated with a number of freight transportation stakeholders in a Coalition for America's Gateways and Trade Corridors news conference where we discussed S. 3629, the Focusing Resources, Economic Investment, and Guidance to Help Transportation (FREIGHT) Act of 2010, which had been introduced earlier that day by senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).

AAPA applauds the bill’s sponsors for their focus on freight transportation and their recognition that seaports and efficient movement of cargo into, out of and through ports is a critical part of our nation’s freight transportation system. Their FREIGHT Act legislation recognizes that efficiency of the freight transportation system impacts international competitiveness. Furthermore, it seeks to match freight transportation policy and investments with trade policy, such as with President Obama’s initiative to double U.S. exports over the next five years.

Many provisions of the FREIGHT bill align with AAPA's surface transportation policy positions and, we believe, will improve America’s freight transportation system. These include development of a national freight policy, establishment of a multmodal freight office within the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and a performance-based program to fund freight projects, including port facility development and improvements, intermodal connectors (road and rail), new freight rail capacity, and the development of freight corridors of national and regional significance.

The bill also calls for the creation of a new National Freight Infrastructure Grants initiative, which is a competitive, merit-based program with broad eligibility for multimodal freight investment similar in nature to the TIGER grants. This helps ensure that ports can compete on a level playing field with other transportation modes for the connecting infrastructure they need to efficiently handle America’s freight volumes. Additionally, the bill would allow ports and related marine facilities—or intermodal facilities that include maritime transportation activity—to transfer funds appropriated through this grant program (or otherwise made available) into the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD)-managed Port Infrastructure Development Program, established in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 111-84 - SEC. 3512). AAPA was supportive of the establishment of the Port Infrastructure Development Program, which allows ports to partner with MARAD to help expedite projects.

International trade accounts for more than a quarter of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product and provides jobs for more than 13 million Americans. At the heart of this trade are seaports, which are our nation’s economic lifeline, bringing goods to consumers, raw materials and components to U.S. manufacturers, and exporting U.S.-made products to our trading partners overseas. Because ports and their connecting transportation infrastructure are critical links to the global marketplace, improving that infrastructure is of vital importance for AAPA member port authorities and the people, businesses and regions they serve.

Establishing a National Freight Transportation Policy and implementing the programs outlined in the FREIGHT Act can help make the needed investments in our nation’s freight transportation system to improve efficiency, increase competitiveness, reduce congestion and improve the environment.

A comprehensive freight program should be a major core program in the next surface transportation authorization bill. But the jurisdiction of the Senate Commerce Committee does not include highways. Therefore any freight bill tailored specifically for that committee’s exclusive jurisdiction cannot be comprehensive in nature. Yet highways are indisputably the economic arteries of our country. The FREIGHT Act fails to recognize that the dominant feature of our national freight network is the 160,000 mile National Highway System (including the Interstates). While the U.S. has one of the most multi-modal freight systems in the world, highways carry the vast majority of freight (both by value and by weight) and would continue to do so regardless of growth in alternate freight modes under any realistic funding scenario. Truckers also supply between 28% and 35% of the revenue to the Highway Trust Fund in a given year.

The FREIGHT Act also fails to identify funding sources for its proposed grant program, a program that would not include funding to improve highway corridors and fix traffic bottlenecks (except near ports).

Moving freight efficiently and safely is critical to our economy and quality-of-life. Although the National Highway System represents only 4% of our roads, it carries more than three-quarters of America’s highway freight.

Highway freight mobility is vital for six major economic sectors that account for 84% of our GNP: services, manufacturing, retail, agriculture, natural resources, and transportation. And the failure to add adequate highway capacity for freight mobility is stifling economic growths even as our trading competitors invest to duplicate and surpass the quality of our highway freight networks. Look at what is happening right now on our highway system:

From 2002 to 2035, a 230% increase in the number of NHS roads where trucks are 25% or more of total traffic (14,000 road-miles in 2035)

In 2002, 11% of NHS miles experienced peak-period congestion. That will jump to 40% in 2035.

From 2002 to 2035, a 400% increase in the number of NHS roads carrying more than 10,000 trucks per day. (28,000 road-miles in 2035)

Solutions to highway freight problems exist. Looking at the 20-year benefits of congestion reduction at the worst 233 interchanges, we studied the benefits of investments that get these bottlenecks from Level-of-Service “F” to Level-of-Service “D” -- a barely passable engineering grade. They include a 77% average reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at bottlenecks, a 50% reduction in CO and SOx pollution, 40 billion gallons of fuel saved, 1800 fewer fatalities, and 221,000 fewer injuries.

In summary, the FREIGHT Act is not viable stand-alone legislation. And, while we strongly support a central role for freight in the next surface transportation authorization bill, the EPW Committee should take a leading role in developing a comprehensive freight title that serves the entire county, including its interior.

The recently-introduced FREIGHT Act, now available for consideration in both the Senate and House of Representatives, marks a significant step in the debate on Federal transportation policy. While freight-related investments have always been part of our national investments, too often they have been an afterthought to those investments relating to the movement of people. Recognizing the importance of an efficient freight system to the nation’s economic well-being, the FREIGHT Act sponsors have offered a basis on which those investments can be made on an ongoing basis. The projects spurred by the Recovery Act’s TIGER program showed that many such projects appear when there is a way to fund them. The FREIGHT Act can institutionalize the process.

The Act is a landmark as well in the way it is structured. In a very logically driven way, it moves from objectives to policies to programs, with a consistent eye on the desired outcomes. It calls for a national plan, an important element in addressing the freight system with its broad regional and national focus, but one which has to be done with sensitivity to the broad array of public and private stakeholders. Decision making about investments would be merit-based, with the outcome measures and the national plan, supported by a robust program of date collection, providing the basis for sound investment decisions among competitive projects. This package of policies and programs addresses many of the objectives stated by the Coalition of America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, which I have the honor to chair.

Of course, there is a long way to the finish line. As we have seen, getting traction on any form of transportation legislation is a slow process, and would likely be even slower for this new initiative. My expectation is that the FREIGHT Act will become part of the broader effort to develop the transportation policies and programs we desperately need for the new century. In that broader debate, the opportunity exists to fill in the gaps and make the connections for true success.

Funding for the FREIGHT Act projects needs a degree of stability and predictability comparable to that offered other surface transportation investments if the choices among projects at the local level are to be real ones. A greater degree of flexibility needs to be there for choice of projects among all modes as a means of achieving outcome goals in a cost-effective basis. And the FREIGHT Act projects, with their strong private sector implications, will need access to innovative mechanisms through TIFIA loans or an Infrastructure Bank. All of this can come as the debate moves forward. What is important and what I find most exciting is that the debate that many of us have been calling for is now underway.