Senator Coons speaks with Comcast Newsmakers’ Jill Horner about the status of I-495 bridge repairs and bipartisan proposals to spur investment in critical infrastructure improvements across the nation. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which finances 80 percent of the cost of all state highway maintenance projects, will run out of funding as soon as early August if Congress fails to act.
"If we want modern infrastructure, if we want bridges and roads that work when we need them to, we have to pay for them," Chris said.
Senator Coons, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a daily Amtrak rider, touted a new report released this week on the economic impacts of rail service in the Northeast Corridor (NEC). The report, produced by the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission, describes the NEC as “an engine of economic activity” for the region and details the immense costs associated with service disruptions along the corridor.
“The Northeast Corridor rail network is a vital economic artery for Delaware and the entire region,” Chris said. “While ridership has steadily increased, critical infrastructure investments needed to sustain Amtrak’s growth have been repeatedly deferred. This report demonstrates just what we stand to lose if we fail to invest in repairing and modernizing our infrastructure. Our economy, our communities, and millions of jobs depend on safe and efficient rail service along the Northeast Corridor. We’ve got to make strong, sustained investments now to ensure this vital service will be there for generations to come.”
The 457-mile NEC is one of the busiest and most complex rail corridors in the world, carrying 750,000 daily commuter rail and intercity passengers and 350,000 car-loads of freight each year. Workers traveling the NEC contribute $50 billion annually to the American economy. According to the report, the unexpected loss of the NEC, even for a single day, would cost up to $100 million per day as a result of higher congestion on roadways and lost productivity.
Other key findings from the report:
Seven million jobs are located within five miles of a NEC rail station, almost a third of all jobs in the NEC Region.
More than half of flight delays nationwide originate at New York and Philadelphia area airports. Amtrak relieves this pressure by carrying more intercity passengers for trips within the NEC Region than all airlines combined.
The NEC connects the national freight rail network to east coast ports, linking manufacturing plants in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, and North Dakota to international customers.
Automobile manufacturers, including Ford, Toyota, and Mitsubishi, use the NEC to bring their products to market. For one major automobile manufacturer, approximately 60 percent of its total exports use the NEC to reach ports in Maryland and New Jersey.
Within one mile of NEC stations, 59 percent of all jobs are in knowledge industries – a far higher rate than the national average of 42 percent.
263 colleges and universities are located within five miles of NEC stations, totaling 435,000 students. The region is also home to a concentration of some of the nation's top hospitals, medical research institutions, and cultural attractions.
Local scientists, chemists and engineers packed the dining room at Brantwyn Estate on Friday to engage in open discussion with Sen. Coons about his recent work in Washington to promote advanced manufacturing and innovation. The event was the sixth joint meeting of the MIT Club of the Delaware Valley and the Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society.
Chris, who holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Amherst College and worked for eight years for a materials-based science company, shared his genuine excitement about invention and innovation, as well as his keen understanding of the financing challenges materials-based science companies face. He discussed his efforts in the Senate around these issues, including leading the Manufacturing Jobs for America campaign to grow our nation’s manufacturing sector, introducing the America INNOVATES Act to modernize aspects of our national lab system, and working on new bipartisan legislation to reauthorize investments in basic science and technology through innovative programs like the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).
“I’m trying to help make the connection in the Senate between advanced manufacturing, research and development, and job opportunities,” said Chris. “America is and can continue to be one of the most productive manufacturing countries in the world, but manufacturing relies very heavily on R&D, on patents, and on continuous innovation.”
“At a time of scarce public resources, science is a critical investment,” Chris continued. “Right now, I need your voice, because there are very few in Congress who understand the compounding value of investment in basic and applied science, about the risks we face in intellectual property, and the importance of getting STEM education at the elementary school level right. We've got huge challenges ahead but also great opportunities – in green chemistry, in reimagining advanced polymers, in advanced manufacturing – and I'm looking forward to working with you to ensure our nation remains a leader in science.”
At the second meeting of the budget conference committee Wednesday, Senator Coons questioned Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf about the impact of Congress’ current spending decisions on the nation’s economic competitiveness and the long-term unemployed.
“You've testified before that not all cuts are the same, and that there are some ways in which we are cutting that are hurting our long-term competitiveness,” Senator Coons said. “That short-term cuts in things like education, or infrastructure, or research and development produce longer-term reductions in our capacity, and that we should be prioritizing things that will accelerate growth – that we should not be simply trying to get through this difficult fiscal time in a way that focuses on austerity; that we should also be investing in a way that sustains growth.”
When asked about policies that could accelerate growth and help the long-term unemployed, Director Elmendorf said, “Of all non-defense discretionary spending, half represents investment of some sort. About 20 percent of non-defense discretionary spending is investment in physical capital, such as highways, another 15 percent goes for education and training, and about 10 percent goes for R&D, such as health research. Over all, we think those investments help to build a stronger economy in the future and cutbacks in those investments would reduce output and income in the future.”
The problem of long-term unemployment, Elmendorf noted, also “has important economic effects over time… It poses a very large risk of there being some set of people who will not find their way back to work at all or will not find their way to the productive sort of work that they were in before they lost their jobs.”
Elmendorf said the CBO has “reviewed the evidence on a large number of different ways of trying to help people get back into the labor force,” a number of which “have been successful on a small scale and have not been tried on a large scale.” Elmendorf pledged to work with Senator Coons on developing policies that help the long-term unemployed get back to work.
Delaware’s ET International, Inc. was among 100 companies profiled in a new report released today by the Science Coalition – a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of more than 50 of the nation’s leading public and private research universities, including the University of Delaware. The report, titled, “Sparking Economic Growth 2.0: Companies Created from Federally Funded University Research, Fueling Innovation and Economic Growth” highlights companies that trace their roots to federally funded university research. The companies in the report were self-selected by the member universities of the Science Coalition and are illustrative of how federal research can spur the creation of companies that bring innovations to market, create jobs, and contribute to economic growth.
ET International, Inc. (ETI) was founded in 2000 by Dr.Guang Rong Gao, a distinguished professor in computer and electrical engineering at the University of Delaware. The company originated in the university’s scientific labs and is now a leading provider of system software for advanced many-core computing systems ranging from supercomputers for highly scientific research to high-performance portable devices for smart phones. In a statement to the Science Coalition, the company noted that “Federally supported research completed at the University of Delaware and ETI” by Dr. Gao “allowed his deep-rooted belief in fundamental dataflow principles technologies to be successfully explored, designed and implemented…”
Indeed, ETI’s first phase of growth generated over $22 million in investments from the industry’s most renowned High Performance Computing organizations including The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, IBM, Intel, Cray, and Samsung. ETI’s software solutions increase performance, computing power, and efficiency to allow users to fully realize the power of many-core architectures. Built on a decade of highly complex research, ETI currently provides software, applications and custom engineering services for the energy, defense, semiconductor, digital media, and financial markets.
During a time when federal funding for R&D has been on the decline, with funding levels in 2013 at historic lows, ETI and the other companies highlighted in the report show the high return on investment yielded by federal funding of basic scientific research. Senator Coons is committed to ensuring that our nation continues to support innovative research and companies like ETI that create jobs and keep America on the cutting edge of technological innovation.
Senator Coons and 11 colleagues held a press conference on October 29, 2013 to announce the launch of Manufacturing Jobs for America, a campaign to refocus Washington's attention on manufacturing jobs. The effort comprises 40 bills from 22 senators, many of which are bipartisan, that will help America's manufacturers grow and prepare American workers for careers in advanced manufacturing.
Chris opened the press conference, discussing the need for progress on legislation that will strenghten America's modern workforce, secure a more level global playing field, expand access to capital for new and smaller-scale manufactuerers, and establish a national manufacturing strategy. Citing the success of Miller Metal Fabrication in Bridgeville, Delaware, which has won manufacturing work back from China, Italy, and other countries, Chris urged renewed bipartisan efforts to accelerate America's manufacturing revival.
Participants in Tuesday's press conference included Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).
Watch Chris' opening remarks:
Watch a highlight reel of senators' remarks at the press conference:
Senator Coons spoke on the Senate floor again on Monday, this time warning Delawareans about the looming threat of defaulting on our nation's debts. It was a sober and, at times, chilling look at what will happen, when it will happen, and what our potential paths forward really look like. He explains why "prioritizing" our debt, as some in Congress have recklessly suggested was a way to bypass the debt ceiling, would actually do more harm than good to our economy and our communities.
