Page 15: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Jul/Aug 2017)

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structurally defcient, while over half of our locks and national freight system.

dams have exceeded their design life. Meanwhile, » Act now! It would not be wise to sit idle when the U.S. China lifted 400 million people out of poverty by Pr esident is talking about making major investments in heavily investing in infrastructure. our country’s infrastructure. The time is now.

• Congestion killing productivity: Road and rail systems are carrying volumes beyond what they were To that end, we call upon federal, state and local leaders to designed for, which increases congestion. American make infrastructure funding a top priority so that we can take T ransportation Research Institute reported congested our country’s economy to the next level.

highways cost the trucking industry $63 billion in 2015 and caused 996 million hours of lost productivity.

The Authors Kurt Nagle That’ s equal to 362,000 trucks sitting idle for a year.

is CEO and President of the American Association • 11 million jobs depend on one aging lock: U.S. of Port Authorities. The American Association of Port Department of Homeland Security reported that if the

Authorities represents 130 of the leading seaport P oe Lock failed for six months, the nation would be authorities in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and plung ed into a recession resulting in the loss of 11 the Caribbean. million jobs. Rebuilt in 1968, the aging lock is the only

Rich Cooper feasible passageway for raw materials to get to the is the Chief Executive Offcer at the Ports of Indi- U .S. steel industry, and upgrades are critical.

ana. Established in 1961, the Ports of Indiana is a • $66 billion needed for U.S. ports: American statewide port authority managing three ports on the Association of Port Authorities has identifed a need

Ohio River and Lake Michigan. for $66 billion in federal investments for critical port-related infrastructure over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, the port industry generates $320 billion annually in taxes, supports 23 million jobs and is in vesting $31 billion per year in infrastructure. Curr ently, the harbor maintenance taxes paid by shippers are much greater than the federal funds being allocated to maintain our harbors, and that needs to change.

• Indiana’s model could beneft nation: Indiana r ecently passed groundbreaking legislation that pr ovides $1.2 billion in new annual funding for roads and bridges over the next 20 years. By building a str ong coalition and developing a collaborative pr ocess for identifying needs and sources of funding, a statewide logistics council was able to build a comfort level with legislators and the public about the need for tax increases. Raising taxes used to be considered a “death knell” for re-elections, but that is no longer the case when it comes to infrastructure.

The answer is … Funding is obviously needed to improve infrastructure, but securing suffcient support for the needed investing requires key components: » Speak with one voice. This is a non-partisan issue that af fects all modes of transportation and essentially e very type of business.

» Support a comprehensive national strategy. States have tak en the lead on developing highways, but a broader multimodal perspective is needed to invest wisely in a www.maritimelogisticsprofessional.com 15

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