National Retail Federation Cheers Final House Passage of Long-term Transportation Bill

The FAST Act establishes a multimodal freight transportation policy to strengthen the nation’s freight infrastructure

Washington, DCDec. 3, 2015—The National Retail Federation applauded the House for taking final action on a long-term surface transportation bill that is critically important to America’s retailers. Prior to the vote, the NRF sent a letter alerting House and Senate leadership that votes on the conference report for the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act would be included in the retail association’s annual voting scorecard.

“We encourage the House and Senate to quickly vote in support of the conference report and provide long-term stability to our nation’s surface transportation programs,” wrote senior vice president for government relations David French. “It is important for Congress to pass a long-term bill that will not only bring predictability to infrastructure projects, but also focuses on improving the safety and efficiency of goods movement throughout the supply chain.”

The FAST Act includes several key NRF priorities. The NRF led a coalition that fought to include a port performance statistics program in the final bill, which is essential to addressing congestion issues at the nation’s ports and increase efficiency in retailers’ supply chains.

The NRF also worked to include a strong focus on freight policy in the final bill, and the FAST Act establishes a multimodal freight transportation policy to strengthen the nation’s freight infrastructure and meet the growing needs of the system.

NRF strongly believes that passage of FAST is a priority not only for our industry, but for the long term prosperity of all who rely on freight movement,” French continued.

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