Remarks by Secretary Slater Upon Receiving the Leamon McCoy Award by the New Jersey Motor Truck Association |
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Rodney E. Slater, United States Secretary of Transportation
October 1, 1998
REMARKS PREPARED FOR
DELIVERY
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION RODNEY E. SLATER
PRESENTATION OF THE LEAMON MCCOY AWARD BY
THE NEW JERSEY MOTOR TRUCK ASSOCIATION
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
OCTOBER 2, 1998
Let me start by thanking you, Jeffrey Bader, for presenting me with the Leamon McCoy Award. Mac McCoy was a legend, not only in transportation circles but in the African American community.
When Mac opened True Transport 30 years ago, he was a genuine pioneer, starting with a dream, and ending with the most profitable African American-owned business in New Jersey. He also was farsighted, understanding that the sum of transportation is far greater than its individual parts, and recognizing the growing importance of connecting the various modes together.
Mac built True Transport into one of New Jersey’s first true intermodal firms, and then co-founded the Bi-State Harbor Carriers Conference. The result, 15 years after Mac and a few other visionaries joined together, is what I see before me: hundreds of men and women from all areas of transportation and logistics, from the public and private sectors, coming together to better serve your customers.
The award you’ve given me today honors Mac’s memory, but his true legacy is the commitment to cooperation and to excellence which the Bi-State Harbor Carriers Conference and its members share. I’m honored by this award, and I look forward to its reminding me, day in and day out, of the exemplary qualities Mac McCoy demonstrated throughout his life.
"We have the strongest economy in a generation, one which gives us a unique opportunity to prepare for the future. That’s why President Clinton and Vice President Gore have been investing to make America more competitive well into the new century."
Jeffrey, I thank you again, and I also thank the other intermodal leaders with us today, Sam Cunningham and Larry Day of the Motor Truck Association and Dick Jones of the Harbor Carriers Conference. And I want to thank the awards luncheon committee, Lou Rotolo, Mary Brew Sturdy, and Dick Jones, who worked so hard to make this event possible.
Now, I’d like to tell you about a genuine victory for America’s transportation community, a victory which continues expanding the intermodal practices which all of you use in your businesses.
This summer, President Clinton signed TEA-21, inside-the-Beltway shorthand for the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. This bill guarantees a record $198 billion for transportation, but it’s about more than money. It also creates new initiatives to meet the challenges, and to take advantage of the opportunities, that the new century will bring us.
Let me put this legislation into a broader context. It’s the latest in a series of initiatives President Clinton and Vice President Gore have developed to prepare this nation for the 21st century.
Now is the right time to do this. On Wednesday, we officially ended three decades of deficit spending. We are also enjoying low unemployment, low inflation, and nearly 17 million new jobs. We have the strongest economy in a generation, one which gives us a unique opportunity to prepare for the future. That’s why the President and Vice President have been investing to make America more competitive well into the new century.
We’ve invested wisely in all of our long-term needs, education, technology, the environment. The President also has a solid commitment to use the budget surplus to save Social Security first. And, at the same time we have worked to balance the budget, we’ve invested in our transportation system to make it safer and better able to handle the traffic generated by our growing economy.
We’re sustaining this growth by making good on President Clinton’s 1992 pledge to rebuild America. The President’s transportation investments, more than 40 percent higher than his predecessor’s average, are clearly improving our system.
TEA-21 carries this investment into the new century. It was a clean sweep for the policy proposals President Clinton sent to Congress in March 1997, and a principled compromise on funding issues.
The bill gives us record transportation investment, a guaranteed $198 billion over six years that has been fully paid for, as the President said when he signed it, "line by line and dime by dime." The compromise we worked out with Congress to make this happen also leaves open the door for higher investment over the next six years, but which must compete with other priorities. We think that’s a fair deal: it honors our commitments to the balanced budget and to Social Security and other priorities, even as we make new investments in transportation.
The bill authorizes higher funding for every one of our core highway programs. The four biggest programs, the National Highway System, Interstate Maintenance, Surface Transportation, and Bridges, have $106 billion among them, almost as much as the total transportation program of a couple of cycles ago.
This record investment also is balanced: there’s $41 billion for transit, $8 billion for CMAQ, which supports transit and other environmentally-friendly programs, and a record $1.3 billion for Intelligent Transportation Systems, including a major commercial vehicle initiative.
One of the President’s priorities in this bill was to improve the transportation corridors and border crossings we need to connect with foreign markets and make the most of the growing trade generated by NAFTA.
Congress answered the President’s call, and created two special programs to do exactly that. There is $700 million authorized for them, and states will be encouraged to use their regular federal-aid funds to supplement this.
States also can use innovative financing techniques, since TEA-21 continues state infrastructure banks, which use federal seed capital to leverage private investment. TEA-21 also creates a new federal credit program, called the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, to pay for large projects of national significance, such as trade corridors, border crossings, and freight facilities.
And TEA-21 preserves a strong voice in transportation planning for freight and shipping interests, and it initiates an intermodal freight connector study, due at end of 1999.
All of this is so important, but as I said earlier, this historic legislation is about more than money. It also reflects our view that transportation is about more than concrete, asphalt, and steel, it’s about people, and it’s about providing them with the opportunity to lead safer, better, more fulfilling lives.
Most importantly, TEA-21 enhances Americans’ safety through campaigns to promote seat belt and child safety seat use, fight drunk driving, develop advanced air bag technologies.
TEA-21 also establishes simpler, performance-based motor carrier safety programs that give states greater flexibility while cutting red tape.
It strengthens proven strategies to protect public health and the environment, expanding the CMAQ air quality program and creating an Advanced Vehicle Program to develop clean, fuel-efficient trucks.
Finally, TEA-21 expands opportunity for all Americans. It creates a $750 million program to improve transportation for lower-income workers and those making the transition from the dependence of welfare rolls to the independence of payrolls.
And it preserves our strong commitment to a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program that preserves opportunity without sacrificing quality.
As these examples show, there has never before been a transportation bill which has gone so far in meeting a wide range of national priorities as identified by the President. That’s a tribute to the responsible, bipartisan approach Congress took in considering this legislation. It also shows that we were listening to what you and our other partners wanted in this bill, that we were willing to put together a package of proposals that would build broad support.
And we’re still listening. We want to get your views, and the views of all our partners, on how TEA-21 can keep transportation as the tie that binds us as a people. We’ve been holding listening sessions around the country, and the next one will be held in New York next Tuesday, at the Port Authority’s offices. I want to thank them for hosting this valuable session, and I hope you’ll all take the opportunity to make your voices heard on how best to implement TEA-21.
Over the coming months, I’m looking forward to us working together to build the transportation system America needs for the new century, a transportation system that not only improves safety and mobility but which also honors and advances our other national priorities.
Under ISTEA, we’ve made a great start so far during the 1990s: let’s continue, together, into the 21st century. Let’s show the world that our best days are yet to come.
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Source: U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)