Freight Stakeholders Coalition offers up nine principles for next transportation reauthorization

Nine principles supply chain and logistics stakeholders are calling for in the next surface transportation reauthorization legislation were formally issued this week by the Freight Stakeholders Coalition, a group of nearly 20 shipping and transportation provider/planning groups collaborating to support U.S. freight mobility.

The Freight Stakeholders Coalition has been in existence for more than 20 years and is a longstanding group of the country’s largest shippers and public and private transportation providers. It is focused on information-sharing among its members and not a lobbying or advocating to Congress concern. The group has also taken positions on other reauthorization bills in the past as well, and each of the member groups are individually lobbying for many of the things included in the nine principles it wants in a new transportation reauthorization, including:
1-Congress and the Administration, together, must achieve real, long-term, sustainable funding solutions designed to meet our current and future infrastructure needs;
2-Provide dedicated funds for freight mobility/goods movement;
3-Continuation of and funding for the Projects of National and Regional
Significance program;
4-Promote and expedite the development and delivery of projects and activities
that improve and facilitate the efficient movement of goods;
5-Establish a multi-modal freight office within the Office of the Secretary;
6-Support multi-state freight corridor planning organizations;
7-Reauthorize/reinstitute programs that have facilitated freight mobility projects;
8-Expand freight planning at the state and local levels; and
9-Foster operational and environmental efficiencies in goods movement

“We are very pleased with these principles,” said Leslie Blakey, executive director of the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, a Freight Stakeholders Coalition member. “It represents a number of our issues that we would like to see in a new bill like the continuation and funding for projects of regional and national significance, which we lobby for. We also want dedicated freight program with dedicated funding for freight infrastructure projects that is apart from the standard highway and road transportation programs, so we go a little bit further, in that respect, than the Freight Stakeholders Coalition is able to do. And we are glad that all the organizations involved in this effort all agree with the nine principles offered up.”

Blakey added that there are a number of core principles that represent views CAGTC has maintained for a long time and is pleased that so many organizations have signed on and are in accord with those principles. Dedicated freight funding, she said, is a core objective of CAGTC for the next bill, and hopes that all the principles submitted by the Freight Stakeholders Coalition are included in the next bill.

As for the prospects of a future bill, Blakey said things are in a holding pattern until after next spring, when a new Congress is sworn in, as a new bill will not be taken up while the current Congress is still in session.

“Like other coalition members, AAPA believes that the next surface transportation bill must recognize the indisputable link between goods movement and economic competitiveness,” said American Association of Port Authorities Vice President Jean Godwin in a statement. “With this link in mind, we are recommending new and additional funding in the next surface transportation bill that prioritizes freight projects which optimize and integrate the nation’s freight transportation system.”

Godwin also said that coalition members are committed to modernizing America’s freight transportation system by advocating projects of regional or national significance that reduce congestion, enhance goods movement, improve the environment and create and sustain jobs.

Congress signed off on a ten-month extension of MAP-21, the current transportation reauthorization earlier this summer, which will expire at the end of May.