Our Failing Infrastructure

Last week, the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a new six year authorization of federal surface transportation programs. This is a crucial first step in the process to enact a new transportation authorization before the current law, SAFETEA-LU, expires on September 30, 2009.  This new bill is very important to civil engineers, but we at ASCE know that sometimes it’s difficult to keep up with all the changes on Capitol Hill.

We have the answer…

Introducing ASCE’s new 2009 Surface Transportation Authorization Action Page! The ASCE Government Relations team will be monitoring the progress of the legislation (not to mention, working hard with Congress to make sure it reflects the priorities of civil engineers) and posting regular updates on the new page. Not only will we be reporting on the news, we’ll offer analysis on how it affects our members. If you have questions, comments, or even inside information, please post it here on this blog and we will try to answer your questions or update the site to reflect them.

The Action Page will have all the information you need to keep on top of developments on the Hill, but in order to keep it updated we need… well…Action! Take this opportunity to visit ASCE’s Click and Connect with Congress Advocacy Website and send your legislators a message saying you support swift action on the surface transportation authorization.

After many, many months of waiting, the new surface transportation authorization bill is expected to be released tomorrow, June 17. The current authorization, SAFETEA-LU, expires on September 30.

Two federally chartered commissions, as well as most groups in the transportation industry, have recommended a transformational change in the way the federal government oversees transportation. Most of the recommendations center on changing the focus of the Department of Transportation from operating many different modes and programs to reconfiguring the programs to meet specific goals such as freight movement or environmental stewardship. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) has indicated that there will be major program reformation, as recommended, but hasn’t released specifics. The release of the bill will finally illustrate what he intends to do.

ASCE graded the nation’s Roads at a D- , Transit at a D , and   Bridges at a C on the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure and also recommends major transportation program reforms. The Society will be monitoring the progress of the bill and reporting on it periodically on this blog.

For more information on ASCE’s transportation recommendations, please visit ASCE’s policy website.  

Last summer we ran into a little bit of a problem. Actually, it was an $8 billion problem. The Highway Trust Fund that provides the cash for the federal surface transportation program was about to become insolvent due to decreased revenues from the federal motor fuels tax. After a few tries – and even a crazy scheme by some presidential candidates to stop collecting the gas tax for the summer – Congress passed a “one-time” fix and transferred money from the General Fund into the Trust Fund to keep transportation projects going until the program would be authorized in late 2009.

Well guess what, the “one-time” fix wasn’t really that. Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced this week that the Highway Trust Fund will again become insolvent if between $7 and $10 billion is not allocated to cover the shortfall.

At the same time, proposals for the new surface transportation authorization to replace SAFETEA-LU are already coming to light. Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee James Oberstar (D-MN) has indicated that he will release his draft legislation in the coming days. Sneak previews of the bill put the authorized funding level at about $450 billion. This amounts to a major increase in funding for highway and transit programs across the country – something that is welcomed by all who support transportation programs.

What is not so clear, however, is how to pay for this big new investment. The Obama Administration and many members of Congress have stated their opposition to raising the federal motor fuels tax or beginning to implement a vehicle-miles-travelled revenue system. Neither Rep. Oberstar nor Sen. Boxer has indicated that they intend to buck that opposition and implement new revenue streams in this bill. Sure, nobody likes to pay more in taxes. But when you plan to pay for a big spending increase with a fund that needs to be “fixed” every year because it can’t keep up with the current demands on it, the math just doesn’t work.

We must commend our leaders in Congress and the administration for realizing the importance of federal transportation programs to the health, welfare, public safety, and economy of our nation. The current leadership does seem committed to making much-needed investments and modernizations. What they haven’t quite grasped yet, however, is that it can’t be done at bargain basement prices.

The current revenue mechanisms used to fund the surface transportation are inadequate. Raising taxes is tough to do, but political leaders must be willing to make these hard decisions. Without them, in a few years we’ll be in a much bigger fix than we are now.