Senator Bill Cassidy spoke with Shreveport Chamber members Tuesday
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) paid northwest Louisiana a visit Tuesday, Aug. 22.
During his visit he served as the keynote speaker at the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce. While with the chamber members Cassidy discussed infrastructure and energy development in the Shreveport-Bossier region.
"My mission in office is to help every part of my state to become prosperous," said Cassidy. "There's a lot of things in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that are going to help do that. Whenever that I-49 North is eventually completed, it's going to be money from the infrastructure bill that makes it possible."
Cassidy continued by highlighting the I-20 railroad between Dallas, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia, this form of transportation will have stops in Shreveport, Bossier, Ruston and Monroe.
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He said, "that means you can live here and travel to Dallas, come back the same evening and still live here with your family, but do the business you need to do... So, I see this as helping to recover Shreveport's role as kind of a linchpin between three states."
“Thanks to the infrastructure bill, we are already cleaning up brownfields, supporting airports, and planning a passenger rail line to connect Shreveport to Dallas and Atlanta,” said Cassidy. “And there’s still money available for business and civic leaders to make Northwest Louisiana a more attractive place for private industry to create long-term sustainable jobs.”
In April, the Shreveport Regional Airport was awarded $900,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration to acquire an aircraft rescue and fire-fighting vehicle. A separate $55,000 was awarded to the downtown airport to improve its taxiway. Additionally, in May, $1 million was awarded to clean up the Biomedical Research Foundation (BRF) Bell Street property in Shreveport.
Cassidy also touted $128 million in July via the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act for Barksdale Air Force Base and another $7 million in a separate appropriation for a new medical facility.
Cassidy turned the floor over to chamber members following his speech and asked for questions from the audience. Among those questions were safety concerns.
A chamber member asked what the Federal Government is doing to combat crime. Cassidy's response was increasing pay to the standard of living for federal agents.
"They don't peg the salary, they pay the VA, FBI and ATF to the cost of living... they peg it to the average salary of the people in that community. So, Houston, on average, makes more than Shreveport. So, you as an ATF, get incentivized to move to Houston. We're trying to change that," said Cassidy.
Among the audience was State Rep. Cedric Glover (D) and Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux.
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Glover who was Mayor of Shreveport from 2006 to 2014 asked Cassidy if the Federal Government would ever be willing to enact the COPS program again, which was a federal program that gave funding to local governments to hire additional police officers. This program allowed for departments to hire officers and 100% of the cost of the positions were covered for the first three years.
Arceneaux clarified that right now Shreveport Police Department is down 140 officers and homicides rates are up.
Cassidy said he foresees similar programs coming from the Federal Government to combat the nationwide increase in crime.
“We were delighted to be able to host Senator Cassidy at the Chamber today, and to be able to share with him the challenges we face and the opportunities we see in Shreveport-Bossier,” said Dr. Tim Magner, President of the Greater Shreveport Chamber.
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Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times. Contact her at mboucher@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Senator Bill Cassidy paid a visit to Shreveport Tuesday
