DALLAS — A coalition of highway construction associations and labor unions will launch a grassroots campaign to pressure Congress for additional federal investment in transportation infrastructure as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is set to take its first look at President Obama's $302 billion, four-year highway funding proposal.
The Hardhats for Highways Campaign will promote the local economic stimulus value of highway and transit projects and push for a more robust funding source to bolster the almost-insolvent Highway Trust Fund.
Infrastructure spending will be the topic on Wednesday when the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hears testimony from top Transportation Department officials on $91 billion for the DOT in President Obama's fiscal 2015 budget and the administration's proposal for a six-year, $302 billion transportation funding bill.
Witnesses scheduled to appear include Peter M. Rogoff, acting undersecretary for policy, and top executives of the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration.
Investing in roads and bridges makes the U.S. economy more efficient and puts men and women to work in every part of the country, said Stephen Sandherr, chief executive officer of Associated General Contractors of America and co-chair of the Transportation Construction Coalition.
Transportation construction contractors and their employees will be bringing that message to their representatives and senators with personal visits, letters, telephone calls, and social media, he said. The campaign will begin April 1 and continue for three to six months.
"Members of Congress need to understand how many people back home are counting on federal transportation investments," Sandherr said.
The current two-year surface transportation funding bill, Moving Ahead For Progress In The 21st Century, will expire Sept. 30 the end of fiscal 2014.
The last time Congress reauthorized a highway and transit funding bill, it required 10 temporary extensions before agreement could be reached on the MAP-21 spending plan. Previous transportation bills provided funding for four to six years.
The federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon is not generating enough revenue to fund transportation infrastructure projects, said coalition co-chair Pete Ruane, president of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
"There will be a lot fewer hardhats on America's highway, bridge, and transit improvement projects if Congress doesn't fix the Highway Trust Fund soon," said Ruane. "The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers and their families depend upon Congress finding a long-term and sustainable solution to financing the nation's surface transportation network."
The gasoline tax brings in about $32 billion a year, about $20 billion less than is needed to keep highway and transit project spending at its current level.
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office said a six-year transportation bill would require $100 billion in general fund revenues as gasoline tax revenues are expected to stay stagnant. Late-model cars are more fuel-efficient than earlier vehicles, CBO said, and fewer motorists were on the road over the past few years as the economy slackened.
The latest Conditions and Performance Report from the Transportation Department said maintaining roads and transit systems at their current conditions would cost $105 billion a year through 2030. The price tag would go up to $171 billion a year to extend the highway system and expand transit capacity, DOT said.
Transportation spending at all levels of government in fiscal 2010 totaled $117 billion, including $14 billion in one-time funding through the 2009 federal stimulus program.
Spending at the required levels will challenge state governments, Moody's Investors Service said in a report released Monday, but transit agencies may fare worse.
Federal spending on transportation infrastructure will likely be constrained for several years, Moody's said, until the structural imbalance in the HTF is resolved.
States could bridge the gap between stagnant revenues and growing investment needs in several ways, Moody's said, but transit operators have fewer options.
"States can issue more bonds to fund highway construction, using bonds backed by state gas taxes, federal transportation grants, road and bridge tolls, and general obligation bonds," the report said. "States can also raise their highway-related taxes and tolls to pay for more highway improvements on a pay-as-you-go basis."
Moody's said transit agencies have less revenue flexibility than the states because fare revenues are not sufficient to pay for operations and are highly dependent on government subsidies.
"This risks leading to higher leverage of existing bond programs," the report noted.
