Speaking before a packed room of Senate staff and transportation interests, representatives of the Freight Stakeholders Coalition gathered on Capitol Hill to promote the group’s surface transportation reauthorization principles and explain freight mobility’s impact on transportation providers, system users, and the national economy. Addressing recent West Coast congestion issues, Leslie Blakey, president and executive director of the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, stated, “Following years of federal underinvestment in our freight network, the infrastructure now lacks elasticity needed to accommodate any activity that deviates from business as usual.” Blakey cautioned that congestion issues are not unique to the West Coast, and a continued pattern of federal underinvestment threatens our rebounding economy. Drawing attention to the long list of associations supporting freight infrastructure investment, Chuck Baker, president of the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, said Congressional action to invest in freight infrastructure would be met by a broad coalition of backers. He noted freight investment is the “ultimate bipartisan issue,” critical to job creation and economic growth. “Right now the U.S. freight transportation system is a source of tremendous comparative advantage for U.S. manufacturers, U.S. shippers, U.S. exporters,” said Baker. “We are on the precipice of squandering that advantage.” Robyn Boerstling, director of transportation and infrastructure policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said that starting in 2003, federal infrastructure investment began a downward trend. “Big shippers are out of tricks,” Boerstling commented, noting the pressure on shippers to find less congested and costly routes. “We need to make strategic capacity enhancements in key corridors to support the movement of commerce.” President and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities Kurt Nagle said international trade continues to grow and currently accounts for nearly one third of the U.S. economy. Stressing the critical importance of a national system, Nagle explained that, “for a national freight system to be successful, it must touch every state and both prioritize and sustain investment.”