The Department of Transportation continues to invest in freight through its grant and loan programs. Over $953 million in Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recover (TIGER) funds have gone to 50 projects that improve freight. More than one third of TIGER funding, or $354 million, went to 25 port projects around the country. TIGER was passed as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Freight projects are also eligible for the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) program which provides up to $35 billion in loans and loan guarantees. Under MAP-21, freight projects can also qualify for $1.75 billion in Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) funding for the next two years. Freight projects are also eligible for loans under the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program. The TIFIA program provides federal credit assistance in the form of direct loans, loan guarantees, and standby lines of credit to finance surface transportation projects of national and regional significance. According to the TIFIA website, “Each dollar of federal funds can provide up to $10 in TIFIA credit assistance - and leverage $30 in transportation infrastructure investment.” The TIGER grants have distributed around $3 billion in federal funds, many of them to port related projects. On June 22, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded nearly $500 million from the TIGER 2012 program to 47 transportation projects in 34 states and the District of Columbia. The grants included awards to develop intermodal facilities in Alabama, Tennessee, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, and port projects in Alabama, California, New Jersey, and Oklahoma. The New Jersey projects included an award of $11.4 million will help expand the South Hudson Intermodal Facility in Bayonne. This $125 million project, funded largely by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will create a new facility will be able to handle 250,000 containers each year and will allow improved access to new Panamax vessels to the port of New York and New Jersey. In Oklahoma, a $6.4 million TIGER award will help renovate the main dock, on-site rail, and a 200-foot crane at the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, at the head of the McClelland-Kerr Arkansas River system and one of the nation’s largest inland ports. Upgrading the dock and rail will increase port capacity by more than a million tons each year, reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, and support Tulsa’s multimodal plan to become a freight and logistics hub via the river facility and airport. An $11 million grant to the West Memphis International Rail Port Logistics Park project, will upgrade existing rail, allowing it to carry heavier loads. The project will extend the rail spur allowing for direct access between rail and waterborne cargo. Future development of a loop track, transload facility, and barge dock will allow exporters of coal, grain, steel, and petrochemicals to expand into the port. TIGER funds totaling $15 million will boost rail access and capacity at the port of Oakland by building new tracks and developing a intermodal terminal, and a new yard. The TIGER grant supports first steps in Oakland’s $400 million development program, a project to redevelop the former Oakland Army Base into a trade and logistics hub.