The Journal of Commerce reports that senators are expected within the next two weeks to introduce legislation to sustain surface transportation spending. One will extend the existing transportation program known as SAFETEA-LU through the end of calendar 2010. The second will transfer $20 billion from general revenue to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent.
The Dallas Morning News reports that Scott Brown’s election to the Senate is likely to result in a freeze in transportation funding for the next several years, in the opinion of AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley.
AASHTO is the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, a powerful lobbying force for greater federal spending on highways, especially, and rail. Horsley said Brown’s election this month to succeed Sen. Edward Kennedy has prompted a seismic shift in the Capitol.
“The other shoe has finally hit,” said Horsley. “Deficit reduction and concern over debt is almost as powerful a dynamic now as stimulating and job creation has been. There will be another round of jobs creation legislation, but it will be followed shortly by a freeze in spending. It is my view that this will freeze it in its tracks the highway re-authorization bill.”
The federal legislation that authorizes highway spending expired last year, but has been extended by a series of temporary bills while Congress and the administration focused on other priorities. Without any funding changes, the federal gas taxes will fund about $250 billion in spending over a five-year bill. But Democrats in Congress – and a host of outside voices, too – have called for a big expansion of that program.
The Hill reports that President Barack Obama has yet to back a $500 billion transportation bill that Democrats plan to move early this year.
During a closed-door session with the entire House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), the chief sponsor of the transportation reauthorization measure, pressed Obama to back his bill funding road, rail and transit projects.
Obama, according to Oberstar and other lawmakers, didn’t make any specific commitments on infrastructure and transportation spending, but he listed infrastructure projects among his priorities.
According to Logistics Management, the nation’s top business lobbyist says it is time to boost public investment in highway, bridge, rail and air projects now to help catapult the country out of the worst recession in 70 years.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue said intelligent and greater investment in infrastructure projects could literally pave the way for a sustained economic rebound as the country seeks efficiencies from its transportation network to compete in the global economy.
“To meet our infrastructure needs, we need to boost public investments while working to ensure that the money is spent wisely in areas of genuine need,” Donohue said. “Reauthorization of the nation’s core highway bill is essential.”
Renewal of the federal-aid highway reauthorization bill has been stalled in Congress since the previous five-year, $286 billion bill expired Sept. 30. Instead of passing a bill that would double that spending, Congress has instead punted and passed a stop-gap bill at the old law’s spending levels, which transportation experts have said is too low to meet current infrastructure spending needs.
The Bond Buyer reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is working with Congress on a multi-year transportation bill that it expects will cost between $400 billion to $500 billion,
“President Obama wants a robust, comprehensive transportation bill that meets the needs of America. The problem is that project, that bill, costs between four or five hundred billion dollars,” he said at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting.
The administration wants to “pursue more flexible partnerships with states,” metropolitan planning organizations, and local governments, LaHood added.
Federal Highway & Transit Programs Extended Through February
President Barack Obama signed into law last week a Department of Defense appropriations bill that includes an extension of highway and transit authorization through February — the fourth short-term extension since the 2005 transportation law known as “SAFETEA-LU” expired Sept. 30.
The 67-day extension (contained in HR 3326) became Public Law 111-118 on Dec. 21 following Obama’s signature and the Senate’s Dec. 19 vote of 88-10 to adopt the measure. Congress tacked the transportation authorization extension onto the defense measure because the House and Senate were again unable to reach agreement on a longer-term measure. SAFETEA-LU’s second extension expired Dec. 18; a continuing resolution through Dec. 23 kept federal highway and transit programs operating over the weekend until Obama signed the defense measure.
This is the longest SAFETEA-LU extension to date. The first extension covered the month of October and the second extension was good for 48 days. The third extension lasted only five days.
The New York Times reports that Sen. Barbara Boxer urged Obama Administration officials to help broker a congressional compromise in the stalemate over a new transportation funding bill, as the extensions of SAFETEA-LU are beginning to take a toll on highway and transit projects.
“We need your help on this standoff,” Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, told two top Transportation Department officials that she had summoned to brief her committee.
Boxer’s comments came one day after she and six other committee leaders and ranking members – including James Inhofe (R-Okla.) – relented on their ongoing effort to punt the next multiyear highway and transit bill into 2011 and instead called for a shorter, six-month extension that would continue current federal spending until June 2010.
The Bond Buyer reports that lawmakers are pushing for a second economic stimulus bill, and that transportation advocates hope it will contain funding for infrastructure.
The so-called jobs bill would follow the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to spur employment amidst stubborn jobless numbers.
They hope it will contain funding for infrastructure without further delaying a multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill.
Go to The Bond Buyer to see the entire item.
Two senators are joining forces to push for another extension of the highway bill, according to The Hill.
“One of the best ways to spur job creation and economic recovery is through infrastructure investment,” Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, respectively, wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky.
“That is why a longer-term extension of the surface transportation program is so important to maintaining our nation’s vital bridges, roads, public transportation and other related infrastructure, restoring our economy and creating good jobs for American workers.”
Five senators joined Inhofe and Boxer in signing the letter: Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).
Congress on Thursday gave a six-week lease on life to a transportation spending law that expired Sept. 30, the Journal of Commerce reports.
The extension to Dec. 18 of the highway program known as SAFETEA-LU was part of a continuing resolution for portions of the federal government for which Congress has not approved a 2010 budget.
Go to the Journal of Commerce to see the entire article.
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