Experts Available to Comment on Obama Jobs Speech

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, September 8, 2011

CONTACT: Erin McKenzie
(919) 613-3652
erin.mckenzie@duke.edu

DURHAM, N.C. – President Obama will address a joint session of Congress Thursday night to present his plans for boosting the economy.

Duke University has put together a news tip, featuring researchers across campus that are available to comment on elements of the speech. Among those featured is a researcher from the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions:

Craig Raborn
Transportation Policy Analyst, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions

Raborn led the development of a new national transportation model that looks at the effects of a range of transportation policies on issues such as emissions and consumer cost. The model was used for a recent paper examining the environmental and economic effects of five basic infrastructure spending scenarios.

Quotes:

“The transportation system forms one of the key economic backbones for this country,” said Craig Raborn, transportation policy analyst at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. “Investment in this infrastructure lowers the cost for companies shipping products and consumers buying them. An additional $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure leads to a roughly $250 million reduction in freight cost that trickles through the entire economy.”

“From an environmental perspective, the added investment in this infrastructure results in only a negligible effect on overall transportation greenhouse gas emissions,” said Raborn.

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