LaHood Signals ‘Bold’ Infrastructure Plan Is Forthcoming From President Obama

This story appears in the June 10 print edition of Transport Topics.

WASHINGTON — Outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said President Obama will soon announce a sweeping infrastructure funding plan.

“Sometime this year — either midsummer or fall — the president is going to be big and bold about what his vision is for infrastructure for America, multiyear and paid for,” LaHood said here June 4 at a conference of the Transportation Construction Coalition.

The group is headed by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and the Associated General Contractors of America.

LaHood, who will leave his post when the full U.S. Senate confirms Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx as his replacement, said he did not want to steal Obama’s thunder but dropped a hint about one funding strategy apparently in the plan.

LaHood said that the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, is a “creative” financing tool that is popular with Congress. TIFIA gives direct loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit to state and local governments building significant transportation projects.

“We’re going to leverage a huge amount of private dollars to build the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York and new facilities at O’Hare Airport in Chicago,” LaHood said, citing two TIFIA-financed projects already under way.

“That’s part of it; that’s not all of it,” LaHood said of TIFIA and the Obama plan.

Like LaHood, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the country must make greater investments in transportation and find a stable source of funding.

“We must succeed in this effort because, if we don’t, we’re not going to create jobs; we’re not going to create the prosperity that we’ve known in this country for so long,” Shuster said.

He said he is working with Republicans who are new to Congress and skeptical about infrastructure spending on how a well-funded transportation system is a “core function” of government at all levels.

One of the Senate’s most conservative members, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), said that, despite misgivings about other federal spending, he’s a “big spender” when it comes to transportation.

Congress is supposed to appropriate money for transportation, even if that means using earmarks, Inhofe said.

“If you don’t do that in Congress, then the president does it,” he said.

Inhofe partnered last year with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to write the transportation reauthorization bill, MAP-21, which Obama signed last summer.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the transportation committee, said the country needs a long-term transportation spending bill, unlike MAP-21, a two-year bill that expires in September 2014.

“Chairman Shuster and I both believe that it isn’t just enough to talk the talk when it comes to infrastructure,” Rahall said. “We also need to walk the walk, and that means finding sustainable revenues to pay for these critical investments, going forward.”

LaHood echoed Rahall’s comment at a separate speech June 1 to the Council of Great Lakes Governors on Mackinac Island, Mich.

He told the officials to step up pressure on Congress to pass a five-year transportation funding bill with new revenue, the Detroit News reported.

He said a bill with a price tag of at least $500 million to $600 million was critical for the governors to attract economic development to their states, the paper reported.

LaHood’s funding comments at the Washington event came up during a question-and-answer session that followed a brief speech in which he said infrastructure investment is critical if the United States is to stay competitive with nations such as China.

“You know what it takes to build one airport,” he told the contractors. “They’re going to build 85 this year — in one year.”

LaHood praised Obama’s high-speed rail initiative, comparing the president’s vision to President Dwight Eisenhower’s vision for the interstate highway system.

“This is the next generation of transportation for the next generation,” LaHood said of high-speed rail. Future generations “will benefit from this vision the way we have benefited from the vision for the interstate system.”

His three biggest contributions while transportation secretary, LaHood said, were his work on high-speed rail, new standards on fuel efficiency for cars, and the campaign against distracted driving, especially texting behind the wheel.

“When we started our campaign on distracted driving, only 18 states had passed laws; now 41 states have,” he said.