Obama Asks Congress to Extend Current Transport Funding Law

WASHINGTON — President Obama called on Congress to extend the nation’s current transportation funding law before it expires Sept. 30 and then launch a “serious conversation” about how to make lasting investments in infrastructure.

Flanked by a contingent of construction workers in the White House Rose Garden on Aug. 31, Obama said the failure to pass an extension would leave thousands without jobs and the federal government unable to collect millions of dollars a day in federal fuel taxes.

“At a time when people in Washington are talking about creating jobs, it’s time to stop the political gamesmanship that can actually cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Obama said.

“This should not be a Democratic issue or a Republican issue,” the president said in remarks before a gathering of transportation users, advocates and workers.

Obama said he did not want a repeat of this summer’s partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, when the House and Senate could not agree on an extension. He also called for another FAA extension, because the one agreed upon to end the crisis runs out Sept. 16.

Given that Congress is unlikely to agree on a long-term transportation bill by Sept. 30, an extension is necessary, said Mary Phillips, American Trucking Associations’ senior vice president for legislative affairs, who attended the event.

“However, Congress must also quickly craft a well-funded multiyear transportation bill that focuses federal resources on projects that are in the national interest and reform federal rules to improve the safety and efficiency of the highway system,” Phillips said.

The president’s remarks drew applause from transportation advocates and highway builders.

Boosting highway and transit investment in a multiyear bill “will help remove the uncertainty . . . plaguing the transportation construction market, create and support American jobs and build long-term capital assets,” said Bill Cox, chairman of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

Cox also attended the president’s Rose Garden meeting.

He is president of Corman Construction in Annapolis Junction, Md.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was also at the event, along with representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Joshua Schank, president of the Eno Transportation Foundation, told Transport Topics he believes Congress will support a transportation extension.

“FAA did not make Congress look good,” Schank said. “And that was a situation where there was a lot less to lose than this circumstance. You’ve got real people doing real jobs and actually working on projects that will be stopped if the authorization is not extended.”

Obama’s call for a “clean” extension of both the FAA and surface transportation bills — void of potentially politically controversial amendments — drew a sharp reply from House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.).

When Democrats controlled the House, “They neglected aviation legislation for more than four years and left major transportation legislation in the ditch for more than a year,” Mica said in a statement.

“I will agree to one additional highway program extension, this being the eighth of the overdue transportation reauthorization,” Mica said.

Republicans have offered “positive and financially responsible alternatives to get these measures moving,” he added.

Obama framed his call for both temporary and long-term transportation bills in the context of jobs, a topic which he has promised to expand on during a special address to Congress the evening of Sept. 8.

In the meantime, the president has asked Cabinet departments, to come up with three priority infrastructure projects each. To get the projects under way quickly, Obama said, the federal government will expedite the permitting process.

As for long-term reauthorization, Obama said the United States invests half of what it did 50 years ago in infrastructure, when it should be leading the world.

“At a time when interest rates are low and workers are unemployed, the best time to make those investments is right now — not once another levee fails or another bridge falls,” he said.

Mica has said his six-year, $230 billion reauthorization bill, which he has not yet introduced, would cut current transportation spending more than 30%.

A rule adopted by the Republican-controlled House limits transportation spending to the amount of revenues flowing into the Highway Trust Fund from fuel and other taxes, Mica said.

In order to keep up with transportation costs in recent years, trust fund spending has been supplemented with general fund money.

Critics of Mica’s plan have said the spending cuts would devastate the transportation system and kill as many as 500,000 jobs.

On the Senate side, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has unveiled — but not introduced — a two-year reauthorization plan that calls for spending $54 billion each year.