Creating Good Jobs and Reducing Global Warming Pollution: How Transportation Can Deliver
February 9, 2011
Workshop Session I: Wednesday, February 9, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. at the Blue-Green Alliance Conference Concentration: Green Infrastructure and Transportation
Building a U.S. transportation system that is equitable, sustainable, and safe, and one that creates good jobs and strong unions, requires dramatically increased infrastructure investment. A variety of industry, labor and environmental groups have therefore endorsed the idea of greater revenue for the program, even if it entails increasing the federal gas tax for the first time since 1993. Yet the majority of the general public and federal policymakers are not in favor of such a policy change. How can groups build support for more transportation investment? What are the political hurdles, and how can they be cleared? Can a diverse coalition and a sustained advocacy campaign be assembled to push these policies over the top?
Moderator:
- Ann Mesnikoff, Director, Green Transportation, Sierra Club
Presenters:
- Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
- Don Kaniewski, Consultant, Laborers’ International Union of North America
- Shailen Bhatt, Associate Administrator, Office of Policy and Governmental Affairs, Federal Highway Administration
- Paul Schmid, Transportation Legislative Assistant, Sen. Carper