Politics Builds a Border Roadblock

(Detroit Free Press – Steve Tobocman)

Steve Tobocman of Detroit represents the 12th District in the Michigan House and is the majority floor leader.

Michigan’s economic recovery is not just one of the top issues facing our state; it’s the only issue. The Detroit-Windsor international trade route represents one of our state’s most important assets in growing our economy. With more than $160 billion in annual cross-border trade, the Michigan-Ontario connection is twice as valuable as all U.S. exports to Japan. No other land border in the United States is even half as valuable as Detroit-Windsor.

When it comes to fighting for special interests and political donors, however, U.S. Reps. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Detroit, have put helping their friends and donors at the Ambassador Bridge ahead of growing the Michigan economy.

On July 13, 2007; April 21, 2008; and May 30, 2008, the Kilpatrick-Knollenberg duo weighed in with letters to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters on the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study without checking in with southeast Michigan’s businesses and job producers.

In short, the Kilpatrick-Knollenberg team has joined forces to ensure that the Ambassador Bridge’s monopoly on Detroit-Windsor international trade’s truck traffic is continued. Reps. Kilpatrick and Knollenberg appear committed to protecting this monopoly no matter how much it hurts job growth in Michigan.

Given the critical nature of international border trade, it is shocking that the July 2007 Kilpatrick-Knollenberg letter would demand that Secretary Peters direct the Federal Highway Administration and the Michigan Department of Transportation “to cease participation in the DRIC (study),” while the April and May 2008 joint letters would seek a six-month delay in the study.

The Michigan-Canadian border is our nation’s and continent’s most important international trade infrastructure asset. That is why every single U.S. private sector advocacy organization that has weighed in on the matter, except for the Ambassador Bridge, supports completing the DRIC study and moving forward with a plan to ensure Michigan has adequate capacity to facilitate growing international trade and to meet the homeland security needs of a post-9/11 world.

In fact, according to Sen. Michael Fortier, Canada’s Minister for International Trade, the DRIC study represents the most important infrastructure investment for economic development in Canada.

It could be the isolation of working inside the Beltway that is affecting Knollenberg and Kilpatrick. Or it could be the thousands of dollars of personal political donations they have received from executives of the privately owned Ambassador Bridge. But Knollenberg and Cheeks-Kilpatrick forgot to ask the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, Automation Alley, Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, the United Auto Workers, the Michigan Department of Transportation, the Michigan Manufacturing Association, the Automotive Alliance or, even, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Michigan’s most ardent private sector business advocate, for their thoughts on the matter.

Let’s hope that Knollenberg and Kilpatrick use this current in-district work period to talk to the job makers in southeast Michigan and get the straight story on the DRIC.