This morning, Congresswoman Janice Hahn, founder and co-chair of the bipartisan House Ports Opportunity, Renewal, Trade, and Security (PORTS) Caucus, spoke to the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) Spring Conference in Washington, DC. She was joined by PORTS Caucus co-chair Rep. Ted Poe of Texas to discuss port and infrastructure issues in the 112th Congress. Her complete remarks as prepared for delivery are below:
Good morning.
I want to thank the AAPA for the invitation to join all of you this morning.
It is a good morning because I get to discuss one of my favorite topics alongside one of my favorite people.
I doubt most of you know this, but Congressman Poe and I are the only members of Congress to have graduated from Abilene Christian University.
He is a wonderful speaker, a strong advocate for our ports and I'm happy to be speaking before, and not after him.
Ted and I are here today because we have something in common other than a university; we share a belief that our ports are incredibly important to our economy and jobs; that their security has been neglected; and that they require a much higher priority in our national discussion.
Now I just came to Congress, winning a special election in July. And I noticed pretty quickly a couple of things about this town.
One, partisan gridlock makes it difficult to get things done. And this being an election year, you can imagine how much more difficult things are.
Coming from the Los Angeles City Council, where I worked every day with people from across the political spectrum, this was a quite a culture shock.
A big part of my duties and bipartisan work on the city council included working with the Port of Los Angeles, or as we refer to it, America's Port.
Not only was the port in my council district, it is part of my community of San Pedro, borders my current congressional district, and practically sits in my backyard.
Like now, in 2001 I was a newly elected representative when, just a few months after my city council election, the tragic events of 9/11 unfolded.
Rightfully the nation moved quickly to secure our airports.
However it quickly became clear to me that we had to pay greater attention to port security.
I worked very hard with my colleagues on the city council, as well as with state and federal officials, to turn attention to our ports to secure them as best we could.
As all of you know, ports play an enormous role in our economy and are responsible for millions of American jobs.
The Port of LA, like all ports, is a hub of commerce, housing businesses and acting as their doorway to markets around the world.
An attack on a major port, or on several ports, could put millions out of work and dramatically weaken our economy.
People talk about the threats that keep them up at night--the threat to our ports and what that could mean to our economy and our citizens keeps me up at night.
So once again, I'm a newly elected representative, this time to Congress, and here is the other thing I learned about this town: the surprising lack of attention given to our ports from our policy makers, both to their economic impact and security.
I believe our ports should play a large role in our national policy discussions. And I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together, because I did it on the city council.
So decided to form a bipartisan PORTS Caucus to give ports the level of attention they deserve.
And I have been blessed to have a strong ally and partner in Ted Poe.
I'm very happy to report that after a few short months the PORTS caucus has 53 members, from all over the country.
In fact some of our members don't even have ports in their districts. But they realize, especially after Ted and I remind them, that ports impact their district whether they have one or not.
And here's why:
Ports move $3.8 billion worth of goods through all 50 states each and every day;
U.S. ports are responsible for more than 13.3 million American jobs;
And for every $1 billion in exports shipped out of our ports, 15,000 U.S. jobs are created.
To make this point more vividly, today I'm introducing a resolution in the House to recognize the importance of our ports.
Ted and I have an amazing opportunity with the PORTS caucus. Finally, our PORTS will have a group of members dedicated to educating our colleagues about what you at the AAPA do and what needs to be done to make our ports economically strong and secure.
And with your help, we believe we can bring ports to the forefront of our national policy discussion.
We appreciate your encouragement and support and look forward to our continued collaboration with the AAPA