Dep. Sec. Porcari: ARRA energy investments are economically critical

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of visiting East Penn Manufacturing Company, a third-generation family business with over 63 years in battery manufacturing.

My visit reminded me what makes this country great: It’s the ability to manufacture top-quality, innovative products that give American companies a competitive edge to help them grow and thrive.

That’s why I was honored to deliver the news to its employees that the Department of Energy is awarding $32.5 million to East Penn through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Obama Administration is going to help this company, and many others, play a key role in meeting our transportation and energy goals for the 21st century.

The announcement is part of a ground-breaking 2.4 billion-dollar effort to help U.S.-based manufacturers make and test thousands of hybrid and electric vehicles along with the batteries, chargers, and other components needed to operate them.

This is the single largest investment ever made in advanced battery technology projects for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles. It will help achieve the goal of putting one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015.

It’s time for America to lead the world in clean technology manufacturing – the growth industry for the 21st Century. 

To achieve this reality, we’re investing in both small, innovative companies in rural towns like Lyon Station, and large factories in Michigan and Indiana. 

With the help of companies like East Penn, we will be able to build vehicles that achieve – and even exceed -- the new fuel-efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon that we’ve set for cars and light trucks by 2016. This is an investment in the future of manufacturing, and the future of clean, green transportation in the United States.

The Department of Transportation is going to do its part too.  We will develop new safety standards for the new generation of vehicles, paving the way for safe, effective plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles.

Without question, this is a transformational moment for the transportation industry – and for the auto industry in particular. If we’re serious about tapping into clean, alternative sources of energy to power our cars, trucks, and other vehicles, then we’ve got to invest in the technology, the training, and the manufacturing base to make that happen.

Working together, we’re going to set the pace for America’s economic recovery and our environmental future.   And we’re going to build the safe, efficient, and sustainable transportation systems that we all need and deserve.

Comments

[Michael D. Setty]

I agree energy is important. However, there are many current "missing links" if you will in U.S. transportation policy.

An associate and I have put together a Policy Brief that explains our concerns about the missing links in HSR and other important, new Obama Administration policies. I think you'll realize the importance once you've had a chance to read it. This is located at http://www.iira.org/pubs/ruralpolicy/Policy%20Brief%20Connecting%20the%20Spots%20Interurban%20Railways.pdf

This Brief isn't due for release until August 15th, but here is text of press release:

Rural Illinois Perspectives

For Immediate Release More Information
August 15, 2009 Timothy Collins, (800) 526-9943

Macomb, IL—The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs (IIRA) has launched a new online rural policy briefs series.

The briefs are intended to discuss larger policy issues and ideas of importance to rural areas. They will be authored by IIRA staff and outside experts. At least four briefs will be published in the coming year.

The first brief in the series, “Connecting the Spots: Twenty-First Century Electric Interurban Railways to Meet Strategic Transportation Goals,” looks at current state and federal discussions of high speed rail service from a different perspective. The brief’s authors, Timothy Collins of IIRA and Michael D. Setty of Publictransit.us, propose a new electrified interurban rail web that would feed from rural areas into cities along the high-speed rail passenger lines. Plans to develop high speed rail would be coupled with building regional electrified rail transit systems to move people and goods efficiently between and across rural and urban areas.

The brief discusses both the history of interurban lines, which crisscrossed the country into the early 20th century and offers a model for how such a system might work in the 21st century as part of an integrated transportation system. Two case studies, one from California and one from Switzerland, illustrate the model from a local and a national context. Twenty-first century interurban sched¬ules would be fully integrated with other types of rail and bus service at key stations using schedule a where arrivals and departures are carefully synchronized to minimize waiting.

According to the authors, electrifying rail lines would provide fast and sustainable transportation to a broad spectrum of rural and urban residents who would otherwise be bypassed by a relatively sparse high speed rail passenger network. Electrification is prefer¬able because of its energy efficiency, ability to use any source of generated power, and its much better acceleration and service com¬pared with diesel traction.

Direct benefits to communities also would include increased and sustainable energy efficiency, significant travel time savings (particularly in non-interstate highway corridors), reduced traffic conges¬tion, increased access to jobs and educational opportunities, and rural and urban commu¬nity revitalization through lower travel times to large cities that would encourage more businesses to expand and locate in smaller communities.

The brief suggests that twenty-first century interur¬bans could readily be coordinated with and supplement federal plans for high speed rail. Including rural areas served by interurbans as feeders to high speed rail stations and other transportation nodes would enhance rural communities, improve economic oppor¬tunities, and strengthen the national economy to meet global competition.

You can obtain a copy of the rural policy brief from IIRA’s website at http://www.iira.org/pubs/ruralpolicy/Policy%20Brief%20Connecting%20the%20Spots%20Interurban%20Railways.pdf.

Western Illinois University is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity institution. For more information about the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, see our web site: www.IIRA.org. If you care to comment about this column, please contact Timothy Collins, 800-526-9943 or t-collins@wiu.edu.

[Terry Green]

thanks to you, secretary lahood and president obama for passing these funds to get our economy moving again.