State DOTs Formally Call on Congress to Pass Long-Term Funding Legislation

AASHTO Journal, 2 October 2015

The CEOs of state departments of transportation, who make up the board of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, backed a formal statement that “Congress must act promptly to ensure the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund and enact a long-term surface transportation authorization bill.”

AASHTOBOD.jpg The AASHTO Board of Directors call for prompt passage of a new surface transportation bill during the 2015 AASHTO Annual Meeting in Chicago, Sept. 24-28.

The board unanimously approved a resolution Sept. 28, during its annual meeting in Chicago, saying a long​-term bill is must-pass legislation that can “prevent significant planning and construction disruptions to highway and transit projects.”

Right now, the trust fund’s highway and transit spending is only authorized through Oct. 29, with enough money to only last into 2016. Already, some states suspended well over $1 billion in projects they initially planned for 2015 because of the uncertainty about the federal flow of funds that came with repeated short-term trust extensions.

The resolution calls for Congress to act in order to “provide stable cash reimbursements to states for costs already incurred, and to ensure and enhance many national benefits of the federal surface transportation program including jobs, economic competitiveness, safety, personal mobility and quality of life.”

The state DOTs in that action also called for Congress to preserve policy reforms from the 2012 highway/transit legislation that was the last surface transportation bill. And they urged lawmakers to “provide states increased flexibility needed to meet performance targets and address transportation challenges that vary from state to state.”

Earlier, Federal Highway Administrator Greg Nadeau addressed the AASHTO board and said his agency is preparing a notice of pending action that can reduce federally required project criteria and give state engineers more design lee​way. But in the resolution the AASHTO board is asking lawmakers to also build more flexibility into law.

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