Every six years Congress debates the nation's transportation priorities and how to spend federal motor fuels taxes. The need to move freight has always been trumped by the need to move people when prioritizing transportation initiatives. What few funds are allocated towards transportation projects are frequently earmarked for mass transit or commuter projects in key Congressional districts. This failure to develop a national strategy to promote the movement of commerce is taking its toll on the many businesses that rely on this neglected and under-funded network.
That is about to change. Already influential members of the transportation community, including the Waterfront Coalition, are calling on Congress and the new Administration to develop a rational federal strategy to address freight mobility. Freight is expected to be one of the key components of the next "Highway Bill". With money tight in Washington these days, funding the nation's freight mobility needs will be no easy task.
The Waterfront Coalition is taking an active role in leading industry stakeholders to elevate the needs of freight mobility while identifying workable and equitable sources of funding for these projects. We continue to actively work with the Obama Administration, Congress and industry leaders to shape a national freight policy that includes a workable and equitable source of funding.
The Waterfront Coalition opposes fees on international commerce to fund national, regional or local broad based transportation initiatives. In the 110th Congress the Waterfront Coalition opposed legislation that taxed shipping containers, the value of international commerce and efforts to earmark Customs tariffs and fees to fund roads and highways that benefit all users. As an alternative, we encourage Congress and the Administration to establish a technical working group to consider a workable and equitable user fee mechanism that captures all users of the freight network to generate needed additional revenue to fund a national freight program.
The Waterfront Coalition supports efforts to reduce harbor truck emissions. Many blue water ports around the country are quickly responding to the need to address port truck emissions by implementing a rolling ban on older dirtier harbor trucks. Click here to learn more
The Waterfront Coalition opposes efforts to amend longstanding federal interstate trucking laws designed to restructure the harbor drayage market by banning independent truck drivers in the name of clean air. Certain port stakeholders around the country claim that clean truck emissions goals can only be achieved if an employee truck driver is behind the wheel. These stakeholders are looking to amend federal law to give ports the authority to ban hard working independent drivers from serving their port and their customers.
The Waterfront Coalition opposes this effort to unfairly restructure the harbor drayage industry in the name of clean air. Rolling truck bans that have been implemented in ports around the country are greatly contributing to harbor truck emissions reductions. These environmental achievements have occurred without forcing out of work many small business owners.
The current surface transportation funding bill, known as SAFETEA-LU, outlines federal aid to the nation's interstate highways as well as other important infrastructure projects such as bridges, tunnels and mass transit programs. Historically, projects designed to promote mass transit have received the majority of funding leaving few funds to promote freight mobility.
The current transportation
funding bill includes a provision called the "Projects of National and
Regional Significance" designed to channel federal funds to transportation
projects that promote cross-border and other international freight according
to strict criteria. In January 2007, the Department of Transportation issued
a rulemaking changing the criteria used to identify projects by granting the
Transportation Secretary the ability to rank projects based on need and economic
significance.
The need to move freight of all kinds, everything from coal, grain, automobiles and intermodal containers, has grown steadily while freight infrastructure has remained unchanged. The enormous capital costs of freight rail infrastructure hinders the ability of rail providers to expand network capacity. The Waterfront Coalition supports legislation granting a twenty-five percent federal tax credit to freight rail infrastructure investors as an incentive to expand network capacity for all freight rail users.
A group of freight rail users that have access to only a single Class I rail provider ("captive" shippers) support legislation that would cap rates and establish minimum levels of service. This could force rail providers to raise rates and reduce service for non-captive shippers, such as intermodal customers, just to meet the demands for captive shippers. The Waterfront Coalition opposes re-regulation.
