"These kinds of pro-growth policies benefit places like Dallas County Inland Port and Texans around the state.”
AUSTIN, Texas (Texas Insider Report) — “As ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, I’m focused on building the Texas and American Economies, and supporting policies and legislation that will help the Lone Star State grow," said Sen. Ted Cruz, the Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee earlier today as he toured the Dallas County Inland Port, an industrial hub serving distribution, warehouse, and manufacturing development needs in Southern Dallas County.
"Inland ports like Dallas County Inland Port highlight how our infrastructure and tax policies all come together to create a great environment for businesses and economic activity. That’s why I’m leading a bipartisan effort to build and expand international bridges on the Texas-Mexico border to facilitate greater trade, and it’s why I’m leading efforts to turn Ports-to-Plains into Interstate 27."Together, these kinds of pro-growth policies will benefit places like Dallas County Inland Port and Texans in Dallas and around the state,” said Sen. Cruz about his tour.
Sen. Cruz is leading the fight for Texas jobs, infrastructure, and innovation from the Senate:
- Sen. Cruz worked with a Democrat colleague to designate the Interstate 14 extension as a high priority project, a major victory that will benefit the entire Permian Basin region.
- In 2022, Sen. Cruz successfully included language in the fiscal year (FY) 2022 appropriations legislation to designate the portion of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor from Laredo, Texas, to Raton, New Mexico, as a future Interstate route. This was an important step toward adding the route to the U.S. Interstate System. Though the language passed into law in 2022 will add key parts of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor to the Interstate System, it did not give the route an official future Interstate route number.
- His latest legislation, which passed out of the Senate in July 2023, would name the Ports-to-Plains Corridor “Interstate 27.” For the two locations in Texas where the future interstate diverges, this new legislation would name them as I-27 West through Midland and I-27 East through Big Spring, and as I-27 North for the current Route 87 from Dumas to the Oklahoma border.
- Sen. Cruz has also been fighting for four Texas-Mexico international bridge projects, and successfully won inclusion of language in the FY2024 NDAA to expedite permitting decisions for these bridges.
- Sen. Cruz also secured inclusion of a provision to streamline environmental permits for federally-funded semiconductor manufacturing plants in the FY2024 NDAA.
