Cassidy talks economy, rail at Monroe Chamber of Commerce

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) paid northeastern Louisiana a visit Wednesday.

Cassidy served as the keynote speaker at the Monroe Chamber of Commerce breakfast where he briefed local elected officials on infrastructure and development in the region.

Among the audience were mayors Staci Mitchell of West Monroe, Friday Ellis of Monroe, Gerald Brown of Richwood, Matt Talbot of Sterlington, Betty Alford-Olive of Bastrop, State Reps. Pat Moore (D) and Foy Gadberry (R), and Sen. Katrina Jackson (D).

During his speech, the senator highlighted the I-20 railroad between Dallas, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia, which will have stops in Shreveport, Bossier, Ruston and Monroe.

"Foy [Gadberry] brought the idea to me, why can't we have an Amtrak line going through North Louisiana? He kind of put that bug in my ear and so we've worked with Amtrak. So now we are probably about two years away from an Amtrak line connecting Atlanta to Dallas with Monroe and Ruston and Shreveport with stops in between," Cassidy said. "You can live in Monroe but say you want to go to Dallas for a day, you'll just work on your computer, your iPad the whole way there. You'll work on your iPad, your computer the whole way back but you're going to live in Monroe. You're going to live in West Monroe and that person in Dallas, they can come here just that way."

He touted the economic growth in rural Caldwell Parish with $5 million road to their port and the renewable diesel plant coming to the area.

"What is the going to mean for economic development in Columbia," Cassidy said. "That is community transformative. It is going to increase the tax base. It's going to increase the value of the property of those who own. It's going to bring jobs to those who don't have jobs. It's going to bring a future for the kids who are kids there now. That is fantastic."

When visiting Dallas or Houston to meet with investors, Cassidy said they are looking at bands across northern and southern Louisiana due to the state's "perfect geology" for storing carbon fuel in the ground.

"In fact when we were working on the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and my team was working with me, I remember thinking, if you want to lower carbon you've got to go where industry has a lot of carbon and that us, and you've got to where there's geology and we've got the geology. So if we all go down on this and if we really work hard on this, we're going to set it up to where Louisiana is going to really go well."

There is $27 billion of investment planned for Louisiana's economy and it's going to continue to grow, Cassidy said.

"I can tell you about this $2 billion project," Cassidy said. "This $4.5 billion project but it's all a part of that energy transition, and it's going to be on the south. It's going to be on the north and it's going to bring prosperity to our state that we have not seen in a while."

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This article originally appeared on Monroe News-Star: Cassidy talks economy, rail at Monroe Chamber of Commerce