Transportation Secretary, Anthony Foxx, wrote a blog-post about the FAST Act. In his post, he talked about his history as mayor of Charlotte and then as the Transportation Secretary; how he and President Obama have been working hard to get bills done that would improve infrastructure and the nation’s highways and solve other transportation-related needs.
He states that he is proud of helping the FAST Act get through Congress and signed and thankful towards all those who were involved in its passage:
I thank the President for supporting the Department’s efforts to help Congress get a bill across the goal line. I thank Congress for the demonstration of bipartisanship it took to pass this legislation and for adopting some important provisions from the GROW AMERICA Act. And I want to thank the many stakeholder organizations and everyday citizens who never let up in their calls for action.
Interestingly, Foxx seems to imply that the CSA scores which were removed from public view because of some inherent unfairnesses built into them should still be public, “…we also know the bill took a number of steps backward in terms of USDOT’s ability to share data with the public and our ability to exercise aggressive oversight over our regulated industries.”
Foxx west on to argue that the FAST Act was a good first step but that America’s lawmakers need to take the next step and bring the GROW AMERICA Act to fruition as well.
I do not know much about the GROW AMERICA Act, yet, but I’m researching it. I can say, because Foxx mentions it in his blog, that while FAST Act increases transportation funding by 11%, the GROW AMERICA Act would increase it by 45%. While our highways, byways, ports, and rail systems could all use the huge influx of funding, so could a lot of other projects and there is only so much tax revenue to go around.
Foxx’ blogpost is interesting and I encourage you to read it… Speaking of reading, thank you for taking the time to read this blog.
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