Obama Again Calls for $50 Billion for Transport Infrastructure

This story appears in the Oct. 18 print edition of Transport Topics.

President Obama last week pushed Congress to move forward with a $50 billion spending package for transportation infrastructure, his second such plea in five weeks.

“Our infrastructure is woefully inefficient, and it is outdated,” Obama said in a press conference. “Today, the average American household is forced to spend more on transportation each year than food. Our roads, clogged with traffic, cost us $80 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel.”

In September, Obama proposed spending $50 billion on infrastructure, which would be accompanied by the creation of an infrastructure bank and a long-term highway reauthorization (click here for previous story).

Obama spoke Oct. 11 following a meeting with Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell (D), Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, several other mayors and two former transportation secretaries, Samuel Skinner and Norman Mineta.

The White House also released a Treasury Department report that found that “now is an optimal time to increase our investment in transportation infrastructure.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that infrastructure investments “in the near term will pay dividends for our economy both now and in the future.”

“Modernizing our roads, rails and airports will create middle-class jobs, help increase America’s productivity and expand our exports,” Geithner said.

Obama pushed his proposal again about one year after the most recent multiyear highway authorization expired. The surface transportation program has been operating under an extension that expires at the end of the year and will need to be reauthorized.

While the administration has yet to spell out exactly what its authorization proposal would look like, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood repeatedly has cited an estimated price tag of $500 billion.

Among other features, Obama’s plan would “rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads . . . [and] lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways,” the president said.

“We know that upgrading our nation’s infrastructure is vital to our economy and our future competitiveness,” LaHood said, “and that’s why the president has laid out a bold new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s transportation infrastructure that will bring jobs to our economy now and increase our nation’s growth and productivity over the long term.”

Bloomberg News reported that LaHood told reporters that the meeting was “to keep the momentum and the drumbeat going, so when Congress comes back, hopefully one of their priorities will be $50 billion, and then next year, the six-year plan” of about $500 billion.

Transportation interest groups hailed Obama’s effort as a good first step to resolving the nation’s transportation woes.

“We are pleased to see that the White House is turning toward infrastructure because of the benefits it has to our economy,” said Brandon Borgna, spokesman for American Trucking Associations.

Borgna added that while the focus on infrastructure was “very positive,” the federation hoped that the administration would focus on roads because “highways move roughly 70% of the nation’s freight.”

Peter Ruane, president of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, said that increased investment “creates jobs, reduces congestion, improves the movement of goods and creates much-needed market stability for equipment, engineering, design, materials and related firms.”

Ruane said any investment must be sustained as part of a long-term highway reauthorization, “the passage of which is now one year overdue.”

Stephen Sandherr, chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of America, said the “administration’s newfound focus on making significant, long-term investments in rebuilding and expanding transportation infrastructure will provide much-needed help to hard-hit businesses and workers alike.”

The Labor Department monthly unemployment report, released Oct. 8, showed that the construction sector continues to be hurt by the sluggish economy.

Rendell said the administration’s findings and push for increased investment “reiterate what Building America’s Future has been advocating for 18 months: Our nation’s infrastructure has been neglected for far too long.”

Rendell serves as co-chairman of Building America’s Future, a coalition of government officials who have been pushing for increased infrastructure investment.

“Infrastructure is a bipartisan issue because we all deserve safe bridges, uncongested roads and sustainable transit options,” Villaraigosa said.

LaHood echoed Villaraigosa’s sentiment, telling reporters that Congress often dealt with transportation “in a bipartisan way.”

However, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, blasted the administration’s efforts

“This last-minute report is a pitiful and tardy political excuse for the administration having killed last year any chance for a long-term transportation measure,” Mica said in a statement.

Mica, who is in line for chairman of the transportation panel if Republicans retake the House of Representatives in the November elections, said he “remain[ed] committed and ready to talk, work and take action with these folks when they return to planet Earth with both feet on the ground.”