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Letter: Hoeven’s support for infrastructure act good for North Dakota

By making the equipment that our farmers rely on to feed families and construction workers need to build and maintain roads, highways, and bridges, equipment manufacturers support 20,900 family-sustaining jobs in North Dakota and our industry contributes $2.4 billion a year to the state economy.

Letter to the editor FSA

Leadership shown by Sen. John Hoeven, R.-N.D., this month by supporting the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is good for all North Dakotans, and especially our state’s manufacturers.

By making the equipment that our farmers rely on to feed families and construction workers need to build and maintain roads, highways, and bridges, equipment manufacturers support 20,900 family-sustaining jobs in North Dakota and our industry contributes $2.4 billion a year to the state economy.

However, after decades of playing politics, the federal government has allowed our nation to fall behind in its competitiveness by ignoring our crumbling roads, highways and bridges. For example, today there are 444 bridges in North Dakota and over 830 miles of highway in poor condition. And in the last decade, commute times here have increased by 10 percent. This has restricted our economy and made it harder for our manufacturers in our industry to move product, limiting their growth.

Now, we have a generational opportunity to make an investment in our communities and our economy and support our state’s manufacturers by passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This bipartisan, balanced and reasonable bill is far from the much broader legislation proposed earlier this year. It’s the right investment at the right time for manufacturers, the Roughrider State and our country.

We urge North Dakota’s congressional delegation in the House to follow Sen. Hoeven’s lead and pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act right away.

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Dennis Slater, president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Washington, D.C.

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