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When I talk about how important the agriculture industry is to our state, I often mention that one in four Nebraska jobs wouldn’t exist without it. But that is only part of the story: These jobs contribute more than $25 billion to our economy each year, and 96% of our nearly 50,000 farms and ranches are owned by Nebraska families.
As a cattle rancher, I understand how much work goes on behind the scenes, long before your local supermarket can stock its shelves with Nebraska-born steak. After raising our cattle, we send them to feedlots, then to packers and wholesalers, who process them before sending the final product to the grocery store. Each of these links in the cattle supply chain relies on haulers to get livestock where it needs to go.
Livestock haulers move a live, perishable product, and federal regulations should account for this unique part of the industry. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during a recent hearing that “we recognize that hauling live cattle, for example, is not the same thing as a truckload of printer paper, and it’s important to be able to tell the difference.”
The Senate Commerce Committee acknowledged this when they included a critical part of my HAULS Act in the Surface Transportation Investment Act. The bill now includes my bipartisan provision to amend hours-of-service requirements so livestock haulers have the same flexibility within 150 air-miles of their destination as they do within 150 air-miles of the source of their haul.
This bipartisan bill would authorize a total of $78 billion for key surface transportation infrastructure, research, and safety programs over the next five years. Along with the HAULS Act, the Commerce Committee included my bill to authorize the Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success (ROUTES) Office within the Department of Transportation (DoT).
The ROUTES Office would help the DoT better understand the infrastructure needs of rural and tribal areas. It also would provide those communities with the technical assistance they need to better compete for discretionary grants the department offers. That would be a huge benefit for a largely rural state like Nebraska.
The Surface Transportation Investment Act also includes legislation I introduced that authorizes a three-year pilot program for the blocked railroad crossing portal run by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Blocked railroad crossings can keep first responders from doing their jobs and put people’s lives in danger if they are left unaddressed. My bill would ensure the FRA, communities, and Congress better understand the scope and severity of blocked crossings in order to develop targeted, effective policies to address them.
Even more encouragingly, the Surface Transportation Investment Act contains the Stop CO Poisoning Act. Accidental carbon monoxide poisoning from idling keyless ignition vehicles has caused dozens of deaths since 2006, including Thomas and Ann MacKinnon from Bellevue. This bill, which has been championed by the MacKinnons’ daughter, Sharon Shore, would prevent future tragedies by requiring these vehicles to automatically shut off after a certain amount of time spent idling.
Finally, the Surface Transportation Investment Act also includes an increase in authorized funding to train first responders to respond to hazardous materials incidents, a program I first heard about during my conversations with our Nebraska firefighters. I was proud to help them translate their concerns into action here in the Senate.
Each of these provisions was the product of a conversation: with firefighters, who know what they need to keep communities safe; with people like Sharon Shore, who want to save other Americans from feeling their grief; with livestock haulers, who want to be able to finish their work; and also with senators from both parties, who still work across the aisle when it leads to common-sense policies for the people we represent.
Some say that bipartisanship is dead, but this bill is proof that it can still work in the U.S. Senate.
Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week.