Senate Banking Committee Examines How Infrastructure Investments can Grow Economy
Brown Calls for Targeted Infrastructure Investments to Create Jobs in Ohio
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) attended a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs today entitled "Investing in Infrastructure: Creating Jobs and Growing the Economy."
In his statement, Brown called for targeted infrastructure investments that will create jobs and strengthen our nation's economy. Brown is working to improve Ohio's aging infrastructure. Yesterday, he wrote to CSX Corporation CEO Michael Ward requesting that his company repair crumbling CSX-owned bridges in Ashtabula, Cincinnati, and Lorain. In 2009, Brown and Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-OH) introduced the Clean Water Affordability Act, which would help Ohio communities afford renovations to sewer systems.
A copy of Brown's opening statement follows:
Our nation's infrastructure has been- and will continue to be -critical to our nation's economic success and industrial strength.
President Lincoln created the transcontinental railroad during the Civil War: President Roosevelt modernized our nation's electric grid during the New Deal.
President Eisenhower established our interstate highway system to establish our nation's place as a world super power.
Throughout the 20th Century, investments in public works not only created new construction jobs, but they had the multiplier effect: spurring economic development projects in small towns, rural communities, and urban areas throughout our nation.
But today, we're seeing water and sewer systems built in the 19th century failing our communities. Bottlenecks in our freight rail systems prevent goods from moving across the country, and crowded and aging bridges present safety and traffic hazards for millions of families.
It's clear there are few better initiatives to put people back to work and increase our nation's long-term economic competitiveness than the President's recent proposal to invest in our nation's infrastructure - improving our roadways and railways, making bridges safer, and modernizing water, sewer, and broadband systems.
In July, the Ohio Department of Transportation reported that approximately 9,500 construction workers were working on projects funded by the economic recovery bill.
Ohio workers and contractors received a hard-earned paycheck because of those ARRA funds.
And it's about more than just the operating engineer running a crane or driving a bulldozer on the Nelsonville Bypass project.
It's about the steelworkers in the Mahoning Valley providing steel for bridges in Hartford. It's about the plant workers in Coshocton making pipe for road and wastewater projects in Birmingham.
There are heavy machinery dealers in Cincinnati selling equipment to the contractors working at the Port of Toledo.
Infrastructure investments help ensure that the grain from a farm in Darke County can be shipped to foreign markets faster.
We can reduce the time airplanes circle waiting to land, and we can fix aging locks on the Ohio River that slow down barge traffic.
Targeted investment in our nation's infrastructure sustains existing businesses and enables new business development. It produces jobs, increases productivity, and promotes our competitiveness abroad. And it advances public health and safety.
We squander all of this potential when critical infrastructure projects are bogged down by funding constraints at the state and federal level.
To shore up our economy and ensure our competitiveness put people back to work, we must find new and innovative ways to finance key infrastructure projects.
That's why today's hearing is so important. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on the enormous potential inherent in establishing a National Infrastructure Bank.
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