Sep 22 2009
Business Community Tells Congress and the President to Act on Transportation Now!
As designers, builders, and maintainers of the nation’s infrastructure, civil engineers have long urged the immediate reauthorization of the federal surface transportation program to ensure vital investments that protect health and safety and keep the economy moving are made. As the current law, SAFETEA-LU, is about to expire on September 30, ASCE is joined by many of the nation’s leading business groups to push for action now.
Today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Trucking Association, and the American Automobile Association sent a joint letter to Congress and the Obama administration asking for prompt action on surface transportation legislation. In the letter the group states,
Our groups represent the users of the system – individuals and businesses that move on our nation’s transportation network. We are the payers of that system. And as payers we know the value that strategic capital investments provide to our national highway, bridge, and public transportation network. These public assets pay dividends to American families, businesses, and the U.S. economy and deliver a long-term value that far exceeds their initial cost
Similar to ASCE, these user groups not only want prompt action on transportation legislation, they want the new revenues needed to back it up. All groups are open to any type of financing mechanism, but all agree that increasing the federal motor fuels tax is the easiest and most effective way to ensure that the nation’s transportation system gets the funding it needs.
If transportation groups, a.k.a. the people who will be paying the higher fuel taxes, are willing to put their money where their mouths are, why won’t Congress? That across the board support, combined with record high traffic congestion and unemployment, makes it seem like putting people to work to ease the back-up would be a no brainer.
The infrastructure investments made in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were a good start at repairing failing infrastructure and putting people to work, but they won’t last forever. Let’s take this opportunity to keep the nation’s economy and safety on track.
Keep up to date on all developments on surface transportation on ASCE’s Transportation Action Page.