States Set 4,300 Road Projects from Stimulus, Report Finds

This story appears in the July 6 print edition of Transport Topics.

In the four months since President Obama signed a more than $770 billion stimulus package, House transportation leaders said states have approved projects that would distribute more than half of the money available for road and bridge projects.

The House issued its report as the Obama administration said that all 50 states had met the stimulus plan’s first benchmark and contracted out half of the work they had expected to complete with the money.

In a June 25 hearing, Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said “4,366 projects have been approved from all states . . . representing $14.4 billion or 54% of the highway portion” of the stimulus package.

The legislation earmarked $27.5 billion for highway and bridge construction.

Oberstar said that 2,294 projects — more than half of those approved — “have signed contracts totaling a value of $6.5 billion.”

According to the committee’s oversight report, Oberstar said that work has actually begun on 1,243 projects, “creating 21,000 on-site jobs.”

Jeffrey Paniati, acting deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, told the committee that the administration estimates that the funds set aside by the stimulus for highway projects would “create or sustain 300,000 jobs by 2012.”

Oberstar scheduled the oversight hearing on June 25, the same day that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Vice President Joe Biden announced that states had reached a major milestone in the distribution of the stimulus money by beating a deadline to obligate half the funds set aside for infrastructure by the end of June.

“Every state not only met the 120-day deadline, they beat it,” LaHood said in a statement. “This is a testament to the fact that we’re putting money out there quickly and helping to get the economy back on track.”

Larry Brown Jr., executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation and vice president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said states were “directing funds for ready-to-go projects that will spread economic recovery and job creation to all corners of the states, with special consideration to economic needs and geographic balance.”

“Our No. 1 priority with the recovery act is getting folks back to work — and there is no better way to do that in these early days than by putting shovels in the ground and jump-starting projects like these that create jobs and boost local communities,” Biden said in a statement.

Despite the positive reports, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the ranking minority member of the House transportation panel, said that “bureaucratic delays are holding up projects.”

“Americans want jobs, not more red tape,” he said. “Congress must do something to speed up the stimulus and get more people back to work in the short term, as well as improve the project process for the long term.”

Oberstar dismissed Mica’s concerns.

“I have no patience for those who have been given hundreds of millions of dollars . . . to put people to work and complain about paperwork. Baloney,” he said. “It’s electronic work, and if that’s burdensome, then those complainers need to get a No. 2 shovel in their hand and go out on a job site and start shoveling and get a callous on their hand instead of a complaint in their outbox.”

Oberstar said the committee’s next oversight investigation would focus on the effects of the stimulus “upstream” and look at materials producers and other parts of the construction supply chain.