A few people in Congress have made polite gestures towards bringing a House transportation bill to the floor before the end of the month, but transportation analyst and author of the Innovations Newsbriefs news letter Ken Orseki thinks any such legislation is bound to die on the vine this year. The chief problem is that with just three weeks before the current highway bill “SAFETEA-LU” expires, the House Ways and Means committee doesn’t have any notion of where the funds might come from for a new multi-year transportation bill. Most of the members of that committee and Transportation Committee Chairman Oberstar say they do not want to raise the gas tax in the middle of the recession. And Oberstar has been adamant in arguing for a $500-billion bill, almost double the level of funding from SAFETEA-LU.
The good news is that it’s almost certain that a continuing resolution will be passed to keep funds flowing. Possibly as early as next week senators Inhofe and Boxer will bring to the floor of the Senate a bill providing for an 18 month extension of the current program and repealing an $8.7 billion rescission of the federal highway program which otherwise would have taken effect at the end of the month.
Speaking of the likely 18 month extension of the current program/postponement of a new bill, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri said:
“Postponing the enactment of a multiyear authorization would also offer the Senate and the Administration a chance to participate more fully in the overhaul of the nation’s transportation policy. This argument, we suspect, while seldom expressed openly, is probably in the back of the minds of many Senators and senior Administration officials.”
The Obama administration has indicated it favors an extension and Orseki thinks a shorter extension, say 8 to 12 months may be in the cards. And he believes as we do, that any extension could present the transportation construction industry a golden opportunity to get it right this time.
The political climate for anything right now in Washington D.C. is pure poison. The health care bill will likely be torn to shreads as will the energy/climate bill and probably anything else the Obama administration proposes. There was a time in the late 1990s where gridlock in Washington could be seen as a good thing. That was before terrorists stuck and we launched two wars, bridges started falling into rivers and the economy spiraled into a bottomless pit. Gridlock is not a good strategy when faced with such enormous problems.
So wouldn’t it be a great thing if the transportation industry could show the rest of the country how to get good legislation written and passed in a bi-partisan way to the betterment of all the citizens of our republic. A $500 billlion transportation bill wouldn’t cost any more than adding a dime or so to the federal fuels tax, and the benefits in reducing congestion and lifting the construction industry would be immediate and long lasting. Plus raising the fuel tax is the least expensive way to promote conservation and encourage the development of alternative fuels and transportation modes.
