Foxx applauds Senate committee for DRIVE Act approval

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx recently released a statement about the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee’s approval of the six-year DRIVE Act.

“I thank Chairman (Sen. James) Inhofe (R-OK) and Ranking Member (Sen. Barbara) Boxer (D-CA) for a good start on crafting a bipartisan six-year transportation bill,” Foxx said. “They, and members of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, took action on an increasingly urgent crisis: our roads and highways across America are falling apart. If we want to lead the world in doing business and quality of life, we need an aggressive change of course in both transportation policy and in resources invested.

“The committee advanced the ball today toward policy and funding goals that the (President Barack Obama) Administration put forth in the GROW AMERICA Act, but there is still much work to be done to address several important policy issues and to bring funding to a level that will adequately address maintenance backlogs and needed expansion,” Foxx said. “We saw some of these critical issues raised as amendments to today’s bill.”

Foxx said that unlike last year, when progress stopped at this point, he hopes that the EPW committee’s work this week is just the beginning – not the end – of actions by Congress to address America’s critical transportation issues and bring funding in line with our country’s needs.