SCOTT CITY, MO - U.S. Senator Kit Bond today joined local, county and port officials to tour Route AB and Port AB/Nash Road in Cape Girardeau, where he was briefed on the Southeast Missouri Regional Port improvement project.

“Improving our transportation infrastructure, from highways to ports, is vital to economic growth in Missouri’s communities. I will continue to bring our tax dollars back home for priorities like the Southeast Missouri Port project,” said Bond. “Many in the large coastal cities don’t recognize that the interior communities rely on domestic and international trade and that our inland ports serve as the arteries to those markets.”

Since Bond served as Governor and now as Missouri’s senior Senator, improving Missouri’s transportation infrastructure has been one of his top priorities. In 2005, Bond coauthored the federal highway bill, where he secured over $1 billion in new highway funds for Missouri and $467.5 million for transportation projects statewide in the highway bill.

As the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Transportation, Bond secured $760,000 in federal funds for Route AB and an additional $1 million for Route AB/Nash Road (Port) in the fiscal year 2008 spending bill. Bond stressed that the roads provide critical access to the Southeast Missouri Port and are key to the Port’s improvement project.

The Southeast Missouri Regional Port is crucial to the region, which ships approximately 1 million tons annually, primarily in agriculture products. Bond emphasized that improvements to the port will attract new businesses, grow jobs and make Missouri producers more competitive in world markets. Bond pointed out that the modernizing our water transportation infrastructure is long overdue and much needed. Modernizing the nation’s waterways will help prepare the country for the projected growth in freight shipping. Our waterways are an alternative to this growth -- one medium-size tow on the river can carry the same weight as 870 trucks, or two diesel engines in exchange for 870 diesel engines, which makes water transportation more efficient, safe, fuel efficient and environment-friendly.

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