Senator Boxer: Creating Jobs and Improving Transportation   

Tuesday, March 8, 2011  

Dear Friend:

As Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I recently convened a Congressional hearing in Los Angeles on “Improving and Reforming our Nation’s Surface Transportation Programs to Support Job Creation and the Economy.”

I was joined at the Los Angeles hearing by Chairman John Mica (R-FL) and members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure along with other Members of Congress.  These Members are Democrats and Republicans who represent urban and rural districts.  Although we differ on some issues, we are all working together to enact bipartisan legislation that makes the kind of transportation improvements this country needs for our economic recovery and long-term prosperity.  

Surface transportation improvements – building and upgrading our highways, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure – will promote long-term economic growth and create jobs right now in the construction industry, which has been especially hard hit by the economic downturn.  Nationwide, the construction industry lost 32,000 jobs between December and January and 130,000 jobs in the past year.  Today there are nearly 2 million unemployed construction workers in the United States.

One major focus of the hearing was LA’s 30/10 Initiative, which  will build a dozen major transit projects in Los Angeles County over the next decade and create more than 160,000 jobs.  It’s called “30/10” because it would speed up delivery of the transit projects funded by a local sales tax measure passed by the people of LA so those projects can be funded over 10 rather than 30 years – thereby lowering costs and creating more jobs sooner rather than later.  In essence, the federal government would front-load the funds, knowing that the revenues are coming to repay the U.S. Treasury at virtually no risk to federal taxpayers.  

A joint hearing of Senate and House committees is a rare event, and it indicates our shared view that there is an urgent need to improve the nation’s crumbling transportation systems and get the economy back on track.  Our Los Angeles hearing was a positive step toward that goal.

Sincerely,