CALL TO ACTION: Senate Set to Markup Transportation Reauthorization Bill
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 2:15PM The Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee is scheduled to markup the surface transportation bill being referred to as Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21). Below is the message that the Ports-to-Plains Alliance is sending to these Senators representing the region through the Ports-to-Plains Alliance Caucus. Below that is a CALL FOR ACTION that is simple yet effective if you take the few minutes it takes to message your Senators.
As you know, the new surface transportation legislation is moving forward in the Senate and House. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is scheduled to mark up its version of the legislation on November 9th. The Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has indicated that he is preparing his version of the legislation for mark up and wants Congress to complete action on the legislation before the current extension expires. This means that the surface transportation reauthorization process has now entered a new and critical stage.
Given these developments, those of us representing Rural America must redouble our efforts to ensure that the new legislation is balanced and fair to our region of the country. The maintenance and improvement of our nation’s rural transportation network is crucial to countless sectors of our economy. Rural highways connect urban centers, offer opportunities to transport goods to our coastlines and borders for export, and allow our agricultural producers to feed the country and the world.
The new surface transportation legislation must provide improved connectivity and mobility for Rural America. More specifically, the legislation must--
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- Meet the needs of small communities and rural areas as well as major metropolitan areas;
- Recognize the need for additional highway capacity in rural areas;
- Recognize that many of the alternative and innovative financing mechanisms likely to be included in the new legislation are not viable options in rural areas and that it will, therefore, be important to ensure adequate resources are targeted to rural transportation programs to compensate for this reality;
- Focus on upgrading and modernizing the portion of the national transportation network that provides connectivity and mobility for America’s small communities and rural areas;
- Focus on freight movement, including freight movement in rural corridors on the national network; and
In other words, as we modernize our transportation system to meet the needs of the 21st Century, we must recognize the critical and unique role of the rural portion of our national transportation network.
It is important that House and Senate leaders and committees hear from us at this critical time. The message is simple: Do not forget Rural America.
We hope you will join in this effort.
CALL TO ACTION
Please take the few minutes it takes to send a message by the links below for your state’s Senator with the following:
Does the Transportation Reauthorization bill (MAP-21) Remember Rural America and its importance in moving our economy and for developing energy resources in our state and the Ports-to-Plains Region?
Just paste the above into the webforms by following the links below. Members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works committee are marked with an asterisk*.
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