Statement on President Obama’s State of the Union from the American Society of Civil Engineers
January 28th, 2014 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
Washington, D.C. — The following is a statement from Randall S. Over, P.E., president of The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), regarding President Obama’s 5th State of the Union address this evening: “Tonight, President Obama reminded us all that ‘America does not stand still.’ Regrettably, for too long, the same cannot be said of America’s infrastructure. As the President spoke this evening on ways to boost our economy and create jobs, he urged Congress to move the Water Resources Reform and Development Act across the finish line and to pass a transportation bill this summer. We strongly agree that these pieces of legislation cannot wait. “For America’s roads and bridges, 2014 must become a ‘year of action.’ If we cannot find a solution for the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund, state transportation departments will face huge cuts in capital funding by the end of this year and fall farther behind with a growing backlog of projects. “No one needs convincing that America’s infrastructure needs work. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure gave the nation’s infrastructure a “D+”. We found that unless new investments are made, the nation’s deteriorating surface transportation will cost the U.S. economy more than 876,000 jobs and suppress our GDP by $897 billion by 2020. Because, as the President said, ‘first-class jobs gravitate to first-class infrastructure.’ “Maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure is one of the essential roles of government. From Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, building the networks that connect our families and businesses to one another has long been a bipartisan issue. Now more than ever is the year to commit to reliable, long-term funding source for our transportation system.”#####
Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 145,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America’s oldest national engineering society. For more information, visit www.asce.org.Tags: congress, highway trust fund, wrrda
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The Countdown Begins – Our Federal Funding for Transportation May Run Dry Next Year
December 18th, 2013 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
Transportation is a key issue in 2014 as the Highway Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2015 and MAP-21 is set to expire in September. In some states, transportation projects are already being put on hold because of the uncertainty of future federal funding. The UPDATE Act introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) is just one of several current proposals regarding infrastructure funding supported by ASCE. To date, the motor fuels user fee (gas tax) has proven to be an efficient, reliable, and fair method of funding our nation’s surface transportation programs. At present, the federal motor fuels tax generates revenues that are reserved for investment in highway and public transportation improvements through the Highway Trust Fund. However, the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax has not been adjusted since 1993 and has lost one-third of its purchasing power over the last 17 years. According to the Consumer Price Index, the costs of many household items have nearly doubled over the last 20 years. Some examples include:- A loaf of bread: 1993: $0.75, 2013: $1.41
- A pound of coffee: 1993: $2.50, 2013: $5.21
- A new car: 1993: $12,750, 2013: $31,252
Tags: bridges, congress, gas tax, highway trust fund, roads
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On Infrastructure, Funding is the Challenge
December 2nd, 2013 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Philip Howard, of the small-government reform group Common Good, said that when it comes to U.S. infrastructure, “funding is not the challenge.” Where to begin? Funding is an immense, complicated, and ever-changing challenge facing our country’s roads, bridges, water systems, dams, and other infrastructure. Our inability to fund our infrastructure hurts our economic competitiveness, meaning fewer jobs for American families. In the 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, we found that the U.S. faces a $1.6 trillion infrastructure investment need by 2020. We found that unless our infrastructure investment trajectory changes, the United States will lose 3.5 million jobs and $3.1 trillion in gross domestic product by 2020. Simply, funding our infrastructure and funding for future needs is a colossal challenge—a challenge we are not currently meeting. But don’t just take our word for it. Thomas Donohue, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, has repeatedly come out in support of raising the federal fuel tax in order to boost federal transportation funding. The American Enterprise Institute, a prominent conservative think-tank, is so concerned about our lack of infrastructure funding that that are hosting a policy discussion this December to share policy ideas to fill our funding gap. Howard’s main argument seems to be that we need to reduce red-tape. Obviously, over-stressed bureaucracy hurts our ability to move projects forward. As we recently saw with the passage of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, Congress and state legislatures all over the country are working to make the infrastructure process more efficient. Reforms to streamline project delivery are a key part of the equation. However, reforms aren’t enough to cover the investment shortfall we face by 2020, particularly for transportation. In 2015, about one year from now, the Highway Trust Fund will be bankrupt. The Fund supports road, bridge, and mass transit projects across the country. The Fund provides millions of dollars annually to repair and strengthen the economic foundation of our nation. If we fail to act, U.S. highway and transit programs will sustain a 92% cut. If this is not an immediate and pressing funding challenge, then what is? Downplaying the impact of funding on our infrastructure is shortsighted. The longer we wait to act and create sustainable funding mechanisms for our infrastructure, the more it will cost.Tags: Funding, highway trust fund, report card
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They’re Back
September 10th, 2013 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
Congress returned from its August recess yesterday to a mountain of unfinished business. With 22 days remaining in the fiscal year, Congress plans to go all in and be in session for nine of them. Nine days to:
United States Capitol Building (Photo credit: Jack’s LOST FILM)
- Avoid a government shut down by passing a FY 2014 budget;
- Address the federal debt limit or face a default on federal debt;
- Reach agreement on the farm bill which expires September 30th; and
- Syria.
Highway Trust Fund: Running on Empty
July 23rd, 2013 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
…..Tuesday morning, the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit met to discuss the status of the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and the effects its impending insolvency would have on transportation projects nationwide. As it stands, the HTF receives almost 90% of its revenue from taxes on motor fuels. As CAFE standards increase the number of fuel-efficient vehicles on our roadways, less gasoline is purchased and revenue going into the HTF decreases. Making the problem worse is the trend of people moving into cities where personal cars are being abandoned in favor of more practical mass transit, walking, or bicycles. …..Witnesses Polly Trottenberg, Undersecretary for Policy at the USDOT, and Kim Cawley of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a number of proposals to keep the HTF solvent beyond 2015 when it is anticipated to be unable to pay its bills. Mr. Cawley reported that the HTF will need to increase gas taxes by 10 cents per gallon, receive a $15 billion transfer from General Funds, and cut spending, or some combination of all three in order to continue. Ms. Trottenberg also noted that with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, there are hundreds of billions of dollars that can be diverted into transportation infrastructure projects instead. Especially given the low interest rates, now is a good time to invest, she said. …..If the Trust Fund does not receive sufficient revenue to fulfill all its obligations to grantees, states will likely face cuts and delays in crucial projects. Several states depend heavily on federal contributions for their transportation and infrastructure project budgets. In many rural or smaller states, federal money can make up over half of a state’s annual budget. With revenues declining, legislators at all levels of government are looking to MAP 21’s streamlining initiatives to reduce completion times and lower costs as part of a many-pronged solution to the crisis. Whatever the solution is, the Highway Trust Fund is in serious need of a long-term fix, not just “another Band-Aid”. …..ASCE also submitted testimony for consideration to the Subcommittee, which may be found here: http://www.asce.org/uploadedFiles/Government_Relations/Testimony_and_Correspondence/2012/ASCE%20Statement%20on%20the%20Status%20of%20the%20HTF%20072313.pdfObama Expands On Infrastructure Proposals
February 25th, 2013 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
President Obama last week provided more detailson his infrastructure plans that were first
(Photo credit: Steven Vance)
Tags: congress, economics, highway trust fund, infrastructure, infrastructure investment, state of the union address
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Senate Passes Temporary Spending Bill
September 26th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
Early last Sunday, the Senate voted to pass a continuing resolution (CR) that funds the government for the first half of Fiscal Year 2013, which begins October 1. The bill expires March 27, 2013 and will provide $1.047 trillion in discretionary spending, which matches the cap set in the Budget Control Act (BCA) signed in August 2011. The House passed the CR the previous week. The funding will be about $8 billion above current levels and the increase — about 0.6 percent — will be spread across the board for all agencies. However, Congress still must deal with the automatic spending cuts it ordered last year when it required the president to sequester $110 billion in FY 2013 if the House and Senate failed to come up with comprehensive budget cuts. So far, those efforts have failed, and the automatic cuts are scheduled to take effect on January 2. Last week the Office of Management and Budget(OMB) released a report detailing the across-the-board cuts in the FY 2013 budget under the mandatory
Courtesy Flickr/Tax Credits
Congressional Budget Office Shows Concern for HTF
September 4th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts both accounts of the Highway Trust Fund will go broke sometime in FY 2015 unless Congress acts to shore up the fund that pays for surface transportation projects. According to a CBO chart obtained, the highway account will end FY 2012 with $8.7 billion and the transit account with $4.7 billion. The transit account could run dry in late 2014. ASCE has long supported an increase in the gas tax to provide additional revenues for investment in surface transportation systems, a move that has been supported by many economists as consistent with reducing the federal budget deficit. However, the political climate in Washington has not allowed a serious discussion on this matter in some time. More information on the gas tax can be found here and the CBO chart can be viewed on this site.
House and Senate Pass Transportation Bill
July 2nd, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
UPDATE: The House of Representatives passed the transportation conference report by a vote of 373-52 Friday afternoon. The Senate passed the bill 74-19. The House and Senate worked vigorously all week to come to a compromise surface transportation conference report on Wednesday night. The announcement of a deal came over 1,000 days after the last surface transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU, expired in September 2009. The conference deal, which runs through the end of September 2014, will keep transportation spending at current levels and extend the authority to collect gasoline taxes through September 2016. The deal will be voted on today, first by the Senate, with the House following shortly thereafter. The bill is expected to pass through both chambers and be signed by the President before the 9th extension to surface transportation programs expires on Saturday. The House and Senate agreement on Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), will set highway spending at $39.7 billion in fiscal 2013 and $40.3 billion in fiscal 2014. Mass transit formula grants would be set at $8.5 billion in fiscal 2013 and $8.6 billion in fiscal 2014. Additional revenues will mostly come from collecting revenues from changes to federal pensions and moving money from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank trust fund into the Highway Trust Fund. The new bill makes significant programmatic reforms, many of which ASCE has been long supported. The deal consolidates federal programs in an attempt to make them more competitive and streamlines the environmental review process to speed project delivery. The bill also has a focus on performance standards for highway and bridge maintenance, and ties some funding to whether states meet performance goals laid out in the bill. The TIFIA grant program will see a substantial increase to $750 million in 2013 and $1 billion in 2014, a move which ASCE strongly advocated for over the past few months. The TIFIA program will also now operate on a first-come, first served basis, removing evaluation criteria. Next, the Transportation Enhancements program will also see some changes. First, the program will now be called the Transportation Alternative program and each state will set-aside 2 percent of the amount apportioned for their enhancement activities. However, if these funds are not allocated within the state, the state may transfer up to 50% of those funds to other programs. MAP-21 also includes the RESTORE Act language, which would establish the Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund. The trust fund would contain 80% of all penalties paid from parties responsible for the gulf coast oil spill in order to pay for the extensive clean-up efforts. ASCE, through the Water Resources Coalition has been supportive of the inclusion of the RESTORE Act language. Additionally, MAP-21 expands the ability of states to place tolls on any Federal-aid facility for any new capacity and removes the Bingaman amendment, which ASCE opposed, that would have reduced highway formula funds for states that sell or lease toll facilities to private companies. Finally, turning to research, the bill provides $400 million for transportation research and authorizes 35 competitive grants to be provided annually for University Transportation Centers, a move which ASCE supported. We’re happy to see that Congress came to a bipartisan agreement on surface transportation programs and worked to get a bill done by June 30th. However, it must be noted that this is just a critical first step to raising the grades for our nation’s surface transportation system. As ASCE has documented, we are not investing nearly enough to bring our roads, bridges, and transit systems to an acceptable condition that will serve our economy in the long-run. Therefore, ASCE will continue to work with Congress on a long-term, reliable funding source to meet these goals.
Tags: congress, economics, highway trust fund, house of representatives, infrastructure, senate, transportation
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SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BILL STILL UNCERTAIN
June 1st, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
The House this week was initially faced with a vote on a motion to instruct conferees to cut transportation funding levels, only to have that motion withdrawn late Thursday afternoon on a
technical issue.
The motion from Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) would have tied Highway Trust Fund expenditures to estimated gas tax revenues, essentially cutting the nation’s surface transportation program by an estimated thirty percent. By asking that the conference report not exceed $37.9 billion in federal spending in 2012 and $37.5 billion in 2013, there would be approximately $17 billion less in spending than the Senate’s two-year bill and $15 billion less than H.R. 7. ASCE strongly opposed the motion and sent a letter to all Members of the House of Representative urging them to vote against the measure. It is uncertain when Representative Broun will seek a different time to bring up his motion again, although it is expected he will reintroduce it sometime mid to late next week.
Meanwhile, conference committee talks are beginning to wear down. Negotiations on the funding title for a new program have yet to commence, while disagreements over streamlining provisions have threatened talks. Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) continues to work toward passing a bill by June 30th, but has urged organizations to continue to push House Republicans on the importance of passing a bill now, as opposed to another extension.
The Transportation Construction Coalition, of which ASCE is a member, held its annual legislative fly-in this week. Over 400 representatives of the engineering and construction industry, including some ASCE members and staff, hit Capitol Hill on Thursday to urge their legislators to support a surface transportation bill. Before members went on Congressional visits they heard from Conference Committee Vice-Chairman John Mica (R-FL), House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-WV), and staff from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Key Contacts on Thursday got a first-hand briefing on transportation authorization from senior Senate staff actively involved in the current conference committee negotiations.
Bettina Poirier, staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and David Napoliello, senior policy advisor for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, briefed Key Contacts during a conference call Thursday afternoon, saying that staff and the conferees understand that maintaining the status quo in the form of further extensions of SAFETEA-LU is simply no longer acceptable. They continue to work toward developing a conference report before the current extension runs out June 30, and they remain optimistic that this can happen.
