DALLAS — Congress must find a quick solution to the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund without waiting for an executive order to resolve the crisis, President Obama said while pledging to work with lawmakers.
"There are just a series of specific things we can do right now, many of them I'm doing on my own because we have the administrative authority to do it, but some of them we can't do without Congress," Obama said July 3 after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the recovering U.S. economy created 288,000 jobs in May.
"We're not going to be able to fund the Highway Trust Fund and to ramp up our investment in infrastructure without acts of Congress," he said.
May was the fifth consecutive month with more than 200,000 new jobs added, Obama said, a mark that has not been met since 1999. But if the Highway Trust Fund is not able to sustain new projects in 2015, he said, more than 700,000 jobs would be at risk, he said.
"We can make even more progress if Congress is willing to work with my administration and to set politics aside, at least occasionally, which I know is what the American people are urgently looking for," Obama said.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said last week that reimbursements to states from the Highway Trust Fund will be delayed and curtailed beginning Aug. 1 due to a low cash balance in the highway account.
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that revenues from federal gasoline and diesel taxes dedicated to the HTF will be insufficient to fund any new transportation projects in fiscal 2015.
Key House and Senate committees are expected to meet this week to consider a bipartisan quick-fix that would push the highway fund's insolvency into 2015.
The Senate Finance Committee on June 26 delayed a vote on a proposal by Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to raise $8 billion for the troubled highway fund by boosting revenues from enhanced enforcement of current taxes and fees. The additional revenue would allow the highway fund to function through 2014, he said, and give Congress time to find a long-term solution to the highway fund's imbalance between revenue and expenditures.
Wyden said the delay would allow negotiations on a bipartisan short-term solution with Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Both committees are expected to meet early this week on proposals to temporarily patch the Highway Trust Fund, but no schedules have been announced.
A long-term, sustainable federal program for surface transportation is vital, executives of seven major local and state government groups said Monday in a letter to congressional leaders.
"Jobs, infrastructure projects, and the safe and timely movement of freight are now at risk because of the impending insolvency of the HTF," the seven said.
"Federal inaction and short-term extensions create uncertainty at the state and local levels, which hinders transformative transportation investments and prevents our nation's economy from moving forward," they said. "Find a long-term fix for the HTF and pass a multi-year surface transportation authorization bill."
The letter was signed by executive directors of the National Governor's Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, National League of Cities, Council of State Governments, National Association of Counties, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and International City/County Management Association.
The current two-year highway bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, will expire Sept. 30. Obama has proposed a four-year transportation program and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee adopted a six-year highway bill in May.
