Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the witnesses for attending this meeting.
I heard in testimony today trade objectives. I heard ports recovery. I heard attention to supply chains, navigation corridor resiliency and leveraging risk-based access to private sources of capital.
Ladies and gentlemen, I guess the context of my question will be this: redundancy; investing in strategic multimodal trade corridors; ports modernization; integrating distribution data; digital logistics; further additional economic potential throughout the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, such as the Welland Canal in my area; the importance of supply chain infrastructure investments; asset management; recapitalization of the NTCF; and finally, amending the port authorities—I would assume, Mr. Gooch, it's the letters patent—with respect to including the ability to leverage risk-based access to private sources of capital, again leveraging the NTCF.
By the way, I'm very interested in the NTCF. It brings in the private money that leverages the money we're putting out through the NTCF. I will concentrate on that point.
Mr. Given and Mr. Gooch, is it your recommendation that the NTCF, the national trade corridors fund, should concentrate on supply chain resiliency, supporting fluidity and reliable trade flows? With that question being asked, be specific in terms of what some of those investments should in fact be.
I'll start with you, Mr. Given, and then Mr. Gooch will have an opportunity to answer that question.