ASCE Needs Your Help — Give Us Your “Success Stories”!
July 13th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
ASCE is currently developing the 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure and we need your help in identifying “Success Stories” – examples of how public and private organizations have addressed specific infrastructure problems with some creativity and determination. While the 2009 Report Card showed there is much work to be done to raise the grades, we know there are countless examples of projects and programs from across the country that demonstrate progress is being made. It is
Success!
- Increased federal leadership
- Promotion of sustainability and resilience
- Develop federal, regional, and state infrastructure plans
- Address life-cycle costs and ongoing maintenance
- Increase and improve infrastructure investment from all stakeholders
Transportation Bill Signed Into Law
July 9th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
President Obama signed the surface transportation bill, MAP-21 (HR 4348), last Friday at the White House. The President’s signature comes 1,010 days after the last surface transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU, expired. The new $118 billion, 27 month piece of legislation will fund programs until September 2014. ASCE President Andrew Herrmann, P.E., SECB, F.ASCE, was in attendance for this afternoon’s signing ceremony. Hundreds of ASCE Key Contacts assisted in this effort by responding to Key Alerts asking them to call, email or make visits with their elected officials to let them know how vital this legislation is to the nation’s infrastructure, and to the livelihoods of all Americans. Thanks to all those who helped! For more information on the legislation and to see how your Senators and Representative voted on the final surface transportation bill please visit our “Transportation in Action” page.
State Legislators Ready to Tackle Transportation
July 4th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
We can take heart that there are policymakers working hard out in the states to help find solutions to restoring and improving the nation’s infrastructure. Last week ASCE staff had the opportunity to interact with a small group of state legislators from around the country who have distinguished themselves as leaders on transportation issues. Through a partnership with the Council of State Governments (CSG), ASCE helped to host a Transportation Policy Academy in Washington, DC to talk about the challenges and possible solutions to funding infrastructure at the state level. What we learned is that these state legislators need our help. Most of the legislators participating in the three-day long meeting serve as the chairman of one of the Transportation Committees in their legislature, so they are on the front lines in facing the challenge of funding the improvements needed in their state. They are fully aware of the problems ASCE has been highlighting in our recent Failure to Act series, but what they expressed to us is how helpful these reports are in demonstrating to their own constituents the need for infrastructure investment. A prominent legislator from Connecticut said, “We need to convince our constituents that there is a need for our state government to increase its investment in infrastructure. These reports can help us do that.” A legislator from Georgia who has been a leader on the effort there to put a 1% sales tax on the ballot this summer to fund transportation projects said, “In my district, we need to realize that revenue is necessary to pay for new projects and maintenance of our current system.” During the meeting, lawmakers shared information about what they’ve been doing in their respective states on transportation issues, but they also heard from policy experts and advocates from several groups including ASCE. Their agenda also included a visit to several ongoing projects in Northern Virginia hosted by the Virginia Department of Transportation, and meetings with Members of Congress from their respective states. Legislators attended the meeting from Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, and Washington.
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
No Comments »
Transportation Appropriations Heading to House Floor
June 20th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
The House Appropriations Committee marked up the Transportation and Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill, which passed by voice vote. The bill’s overall total of $51.6 billion in discretionary spending would be $3.9 billion less than fiscal 2012 and $1.9 billion less than the president’s request, however due to the current economic climate the cuts are not too bad. Overall, the House was kind to transportation programs, maintaining investment for highways and making minor increases for the FAA and Amtrak. One of the bigger cuts in the House bill is the zeroing out of the discretionary TIGER program, which provides grants for infrastructure projects that have national or regional significance. The full spending breakdown can be seen here:- Highways – Provides $39.1 billion from the Highway Trust Fund to be spent, the same level as last year and $2.7 billion below the President’s request.
- Air – The FAA would receive $12.6 billion, $91 million above last year’s level. The bill also provides nearly $1 billion for NextGen and rejects the Administration’s proposal for new aviation fees.
- Rail – The Federal Railroad Administration is funded with $2 billion, which is $384 million above last year’s level and $716 million below the President’s request. This funding includes $1.8 billion for Amtrak, to be primarily used for capital improvements.
- Transit – The Federal Transit Administration would receive $2 billion, which is $181 million below last year’s level and $546 million below the President’s request. The bill would also provide $1.8 billion for the “New Starts” program.
- Maritime – The bill includes $338 million for the Maritime Administration, a decline of $12 million from last year and $7 million below the President’s request.
- Safety – The bill includes $776 million for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a decrease of $23.8 million from last year; $551 million for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a decrease of $2.6 million from last year; and $177 million for the Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Administration, an increase of $4 million from last year.
Tags: economics, infrastructure, legislation, roads, transportation
No Comments »
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.
Transportation Conference Committee Kicks Off Talks
May 9th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
The surface transportation conference committee commenced its first meeting yesterday, with Senate and House conferees taking the opportunity to give opening remarks on what is anticipated to be one of the final hurdles in passing a transportation bill.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), author of MAP-21 (S. 1813) and chair of the conference committee, began the meeting with a statement highlighting the bipartisan Senate bill. Sen. Boxer stressed that “failure is not an option” and implored members to act quickly in hashing out compromise legislation, setting a target of early June for a deal to be struck. She was followed by Representative John Mica (R-FL), selected as vice-chair of the conference, who also stressed the economic importance of a bill.
The issues of Keystone XL, funding and financing options, an amendment stripping EPA of regulatory power over coal ash, and House language streamlining environmental policy still remained the most important issues needing compromise. However, it did appear during many of the remarks there existed support for the RESTORE Act, Senate TIFIA language, as well as the RAMP Act. The RESTORE Act would direct fines from oil companies responsible for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill to Gulf Coast restoration and clean-up efforts, and the RAMP Act would ensure revenue in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund be dedicated and used solely for harbor maintenance programs.
The general feeling throughout the opening statements was far less acrimonious than the House Transportation and Infrastructure markup of H.R. 7, which saw lawmakers bicker over amendments into the early hours of the morning this past February. Throughout the opening statements, the majority of lawmakers around the table stressed how critical it was to work quickly to get this done and how vital a bill is to job creation, with both sides stressing the need to work for the American people. One memorable line came from Representative Nick Rahall, the ranking minority member on the House T&I committee – “we cannot let hard heads get in the way of hard hats”.
Congressional Recess Is Here, But A Surface Transportation Compromise Is Not Near
April 3rd, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
Congress went home last Friday for a two week recess after punting action on surface transportation another 90 days. Surface transportation programs have been running on a series of extensions for 916 days already, and this 9th extension will continue to add up the count until June 30th. Many in the transportation industry have grown extremely concerned that the House will not take action over the next three months and that programs will have to continue to run on extensions until after the November elections. Frustrations are at a boiling point now as state’s deal with the continued uncertainty coming from Capitol Hill, and as Republicans and Democrats continue to disagree on a path forward in the House. Legislators need to hear from their constituents why passing a new multi-year surface transportation bill is critical and why a continued series of extensions is unacceptable. Use the two week House recess to meet with your representative and tell them how the lack of a new surface transportation bill affects the civil engineering profession, your company, and your community. Share your stories with them in either a local town hall or by scheduling a meeting in a district office. While your Representative is home let’s use this opportunity to explain to legislators why a new bill is critical and let’s not allow their time at home to be a way to escape the needs of our nation’s infrastructure. Over the next 90 days ASCE will continue to urge the House of Representatives to take up and pass a bipartisan surface transportation bill, but with your help the message will really hit home! For continuous updates through June 30th, follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/ascegovrel) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Save-Americas-Infrastructure/213409032028360?sk=wall).Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
March 6th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
The Associated Press distributed a story yesterday claiming that a surface transportation bill would not necessarily create jobs, but instead shift investments that are already creating jobs to the transportation industry. However, money invested in essential public works can create thousands jobs across the nation, provide for economic growth, and ensure public safety. The nation’s transportation infrastructure system has an annual output of $120 billion in construction work and contributes $244 billion in total economic activity to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). In addition to the economic benefits, the Federal Highway Administration estimates that every $1 billion invested in the nation’s highways supports 27,823 jobs, including 9,537 on-site construction jobs, 4,324 jobs in supplier industries, and 13,962 jobs throughout the rest of the economy. While Standard and Poor’s has stated that highway investment has been shown to stimulate the economy more than any other fiscal policy, with each invested dollar in highway construction generating $1.80 toward the gross domestic product in the short term. In July 2011, ASCE released an economic study that measures the potential impacts to the economy in 2020 and 2040 if the nation maintains current levels of surface transportation investments. The study, Failure to Act: the Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation Infrastructure, found that if investments in surface transportation are not made in conjunction with significant policy reforms, families will have a lower standard of living, businesses will be paying more and producing less, and our nation will lose ground in a global economy. Furthermore, the study found that the nation’s deteriorating surface transportation will cost the American economy more than 876,000 jobs, and suppress the growth of the country’s GDP by $897 billion in 2020. The results also estimate that more than 100,900 manufacturing jobs will be lost by 2020 and that ultimately Americans will get paid less. In contrast, a study from the Alliance for American Manufacturing shows that roughly 18,000 new manufacturing jobs are created for every $1 billion in new infrastructure spending. The nation’s economic health is dependent on a strong infrastructure system. By updating, maintaining, and building our roads, bridges, and transit systems, the nation can create jobs in both the public and private sector, while fostering and growing the United States economy. Therefore, the first step toward a modernized transportation system must include passing a multi-year surface transportation authorization. With the Senate slowly working through a series of non-germane amendments to MAP-21, and the House reassessing their next steps after pulling the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, surface transportation programs continue to face an uncertain future. ASCE hopes that the House and Senate can find a solution and pass legislation in the 112th Congress. In the meantime, surface transportation programs will be subjected to another extension, while American jobs hang on the line.
Tags: economics, senate, transportation
9 Comments »
Senate Finance Crosses Finish Line
February 8th, 2012 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
The Senate Finance Committee put the last puzzle piece in place last night when they voted the revenue portions of S. 1813, MAP-21, out of committee. The committee voted 17-6, with four Republicans voting with Democrats, in order to complete the last step before the legislation could reach the Senate floor. Senators will now vote on a motion to proceed, or invoke cloture, at 2pm Thursday. When this motion receives 60 votes, the Senate will be able to begin debate on “Moving Ahead for Progress in the Twenty-First Century”, or MAP-21. Senators must vote on four different portions of the legislation. First up will be the policy portion that was reported from the Environment and Public Works Committee, followed by the transit title from the Banking Committee, then the revenue title that was reported from Finance, and last but not least, safety measures from the Commerce Committee. Many expect the legislation to be on the Senate floor until President’s Day recess, which will begin at the end of next week. The Senate’s action this week means that both chambers will be debating surface transportation legislation on their respective floors next week. After years of inaction on the topic, surface transportation has finally become priority number one in Congress!
