Without Congressional Action, State Transportation Projects May Come to Complete Stop

It appears that unless the U.S. Congress acts soon over 500,000 jobs are at risk and state transportation improvement projects may come to a complete stop.

Susan Martinovich, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation and president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, recently joined her colleagues from other states to warn Congress and the nation of the situation.

“We’re here today to sound the alarm,” Martinovich said in a press statement. “Congress must take action by September 30th, or the federal highway and transit programs that support thousands of jobs in every state will shut down.” Current transportation legislation will expire on Sept. 30.

She explained that Congress has to extend an 18.4-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax to fund the federal highway and transit programs. Congress also needs to pass a long-term reauthorization of the programs, she said.

It appears that bickering and political maneuvering between Congressional Democrats and Republicans could impact reauthorization legislation. The Washington Post reported recently how a bill for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) extension became “a major test of wills between House Republicans and Senate Democrats.”

“That cost an estimated $350 million in tax revenue and led to a partial agency shutdown that put 4,000 FAA employees and tens of thousands of construction workers out of work for two weeks,” The Post reported. The FAA shutdown was partially blamed on a disagreement over union election rules, according to a report from TMCnet.

The transportation association estimates that when Congress reconvenes in September it has 11 legislative days in which to act to meet the deadline.

“The federal government provides about $42 billion for highways and $11 billion for transit to states annually,” Martinovich said in an organizational statement. “Sustaining this investment is imperative. Should Congress decide to reduce the program by one-third as some have proposed, it would mean the cancellation of hundreds of job-creating projects that are essential to America’s economic recovery.”

Just as an example, Mike Hancock, AASHTO president and Kentucky transportation secretary pointed to his state which “has $447 million in Federal-aid highway construction and repair projects ready for bidding over the next four months.”

“It’s imperative that Congress act to prevent the nation’s federal surface transportation program from expiring,” he said. The transportation projects in Kentucky at risk include the widening of Interstate 65, replacing bridges, and fixing highway pavement on Interstate 471, as well as on other major roads.

“We urgently need for Congress to pass a reauthorization bill – one that sustains funding at current levels and adjusts revenues for inflation,” Hancock said. “States need certainty. Effective planning is impossible otherwise. Without reauthorization, projects will have to be dramatically slowed, with a moratorium on new projects, because the state cannot carry federal-aid projects on its own.”

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