President Obama Announces Highway Reauthorization Initiative

In a speech in St Paul, Minn. this week, President Obama provided his Administration’s broad concepts for reauthorization of the highway and transit programs, including his ideas for how to provide the needed revenue. The president called for a four-year, $302 billion authorization that would be paid for with $150 billion in revenue from corporate tax reform initiatives. Full details of the proposal will be spelled out in the president’s budget proposal, which will be released on Tuesday, March 4. Some information was provided in facts sheets which accompanied the President’s proposal as follows:

•  The proposal includes $206 billion in highway funding, including $7 billion in highway safety funding and $199 billion for road improvements. The fact sheets indicate this is a 22 percent per year increase over current highway funding for the four years.
• Average transit funding will increase by $70 billion, a nearly 70 percent increase.
• $19 billion would be provided for rail projects with an emphasis on high performance and passenger rail.
• The TIGER grant program would be made permanent and receive $5 billion over four years. An additional $4 billion in competitive grants would be made available for innovative local transportation policy initiatives.
• More than $2.6 billion would be provided for the creation of a “ladders for opportunity” program for a construction workforce training initiative.
• $10 billion would go to the creation of a new multimodal freight program.
• The TIFIA program would continue to be funded at $1 billion in each of the four years.
• The proposal calls for an emphasis on “fix it first” projects, favoring maintaining existing infrastructure improvements over increasing capacity.

No details were given on the Presidents ideas for tax reform that will be used as the funding source. AGC’s CEO Stephen Sandherr issued a statement that said, in part, "It is encouraging to see President Obama pushing for a long-term bill to fund desperately needed highway and transit investments.  We look forward to reviewing details about the measure, which recognizes the federal transportation funding shortfalls that threaten to curtail investments in highway and transit projects as early as this summer.  The president clearly understands that any new transportation bill must include new sources of revenue to meet the needs of our aging transportation system.” DOT’s acting Deputy Secretary Victor Mendez is participating in AGC’s 95th Annual Convention in Las Vegas next week and will discuss the Administration’s proposal with the Highway and Transportation Division.