Ports-to-Plains Alliance
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The Ports-to-Plains Alliance, based in Lubbock, Texas, is a non-profit, bipartisan, community-driven advocacy group led by mayors, councilpersons and other local elected leaders, economic development officials, business and other opinion leaders from nine states (TX, NM, OK, CO, ND, SD, MT, NE and WY) and one Canadian province (Alberta) which contains a 2,300-plus mile economic development corridor stretching from Texas to Alberta.[1]
The Alliance was formalized in early 2009 through an agreement between groups representing three Congressionally-designated High Priority Corridors on the U.S. National Highway System (NHS): the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition; the Heartland Expressway; and the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway Association. Today, as the Ports-to-Plains Alliance, the coalition works together to assure continued prosperity in communities throughout North America’s energy and agricultural heartland.[2]
Mission
The Alliance's leadership, membership and supporters are united by a single paramount priority: promoting trade, investment, infrastructure development and intermodal connectivity throughout the Ports-to-Plains region, and partnering with other groups who are equally dedicated to a renewed, robust heartland economy. Originally, each individual group lobbied the U.S. Congress, the White House and state governments for highway improvement dollars, with largely local goals in mind.
Today, the Ports-to-Plains Alliance offers rural America, its advocates and key trading partners a forum for collaboration, partnership for pursuing the rich potential of the region and its people, and leadership and other resources necessary to jointly address common challenges, and to aggressively pursue common opportunities. The Alliance continues to fulfill an original purpose, too: raising funds and other resources to sustain and improve the Ports-to-Plains regional intermodal transportation network.
Core Services
Through its volunteer Board, full-time professional staff headquartered in Lubbock, Texas, and seasoned advocacy professionals in all nine states, Canada, Mexico and Washington, D.C., the Alliance provides its member communities, partners and businesses the following core services:
• Advocacy: The Alliance monitors legislative developments in all nine states likely to significantly impact the region’s energy and agriculture sectors, and the infrastructure they require to flourish. As always, member communities rely on Alliance leaders and staff to help them better identify, pursue and capture hard dollars for local highway projects.
• Economic Development: The Alliance provides communities a globally recognized forum for marketing local business, investment and tourism to a growing national and international business audience.
• Industry Partnerships: Through industry work groups, the Alliance provides the energy, agriculture, transportation, trucking and other industries a means of providing guidance on policy matters, educating the public, and promoting their brands.
Ports-to-Plains Alliance Achievements
• Lobbied for and secured Congressional designations for our three constituent High Priority Corridors, comprising 2,333 miles of highway. • Helped to raise nearly U.S. $1 billion in federal funding for road improvements in the nine-state Ports-to-Plains region. • Created a unified voice for rural development in North America’s energy and agricultural heartland.
