AASHTO, Transportation Stakeholders Join Senate EPW Chair to Call for Highway Trust Fund & Reauthorization Action

AASHTO Journal, 27 June 2014

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) held a news conference this week to urge congressional action on the Highway Trust Fund and a long-term surface transportation bill to follow MAP-21, which is set to expire on Sept. 30. The HTF, however, is scheduled to run out of funding well before that expiration, according to projections by the U.S. Department of Transportation (see related AASHTO Journal story here).

“Today we are facing a mayday situation, and I am here to send an SOS call to Congress and the American people. We are on the verge of a transportation government shutdown,” said Boxer. “The Highway Trust Fund must be saved. It provides predictable, multi-year funding to states so they can plan and construct long-term highway, bridge, and transit projects.” Boxer went on to say she supports a recently released plan by Sen. Ron Wyden that raises $9 billion for the HTF to keep it afloat through the end of the calendar year (see related AASHTO Journal coverage on that measure here).

Representatives of several transportation associations, including American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Executive Director Bud Wright, attended the event and emphasized the effects of an insolvent HTF and the lack of a follow-up bill to MAP-21.

“If Congress does not act by the end of July, the U.S. Department of transportation will delay reimbursements to state DOTs for work on highway projects that is already completed. Delaying reimbursements to states is the equivalent of the federal government defaulting on a commitment,” Wright said. “Without reimbursement from USDOT, states will be forced to either pay for the federal portion of projects out of their own pockets or stop paying bills from contractors.”

Wright said that many states have already taken preventive actions, cutting projects from construction schedules.

In order to prevent further funding problems on the state level, which then affects jobs during the typically busy construction season, Congress needs to act quickly, Wright said.

“The time for Congress to act is now,” Wright concluded. “Congress needs to reach an agreement on how to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent within the next few weeks and continue to work on a six-year surface transportation bill that keeps the Highway Trust Fund solvent for the foreseeable future.”

Check out a Transportation TV feature on this news conference at TransportationTV.org.

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