Highway legislation extended, lawmakers discuss successor bill
Published on 04/05/2011
Congress extended the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which provides funding for transportation projects nationwide, for the seventh - and likely final - time in early March.
"We stabilized the trust fund through Sept. 30th when we passed the seventh extension, but I'm here to tell you that there won't be an eighth," Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told the National Association of Counties at their annual legislative conference. "That's no way to conduct business relating to what you all need to know - what the federal government is going to be doing and what the federal government is going to be funding."
Officials from all levels of government and construction advocacy groups have been clamoring for Congress to begin drafting a multi-year successor to SAFETEA-LU. The Associated General Contractors of America, for instance, stressed the need for long-term infrastructure investments by the federal government in its recently published Blueprint for Economic Growth.
"Federal investment policies are causing considerable uncertainty for the growing numbers of construction firms that have come to focus on federally-funded projects," says the Blueprint. "That is because Congress has yet to pass long-term infrastructure investment legislation addressing our aging inventory of water, road, transit or aviation systems."
President Barack Obama has publicly backed successor legislation, calling for the approval of a six-year surface transportation package in his "Win the Future with a 21st Century Infrastructure" plan. The multi-year bill he envisions would spend $35 billion more on transportation projects per year than SAFETEA-LU.
The push for long-term infrastructure investments has received support from legislators on both sides of the aisle, but many are questioning how the federal government will pay for it. The White House has ruled out increasing the gas tax and GOP members are wary of any further deficit spending.
The SAFETEA-LU legislation originally expired in September 2009.
