Obama’s Infrastructure Proposal Draws Trucking Industry Praise

By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter

This story appears in the Dec. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.

President-elect Barack Obama’s promise to sponsor the largest infrastructure-building program in more than 50 years has excited trucking officials, who also encouraged the new administration not to overlook the longer-term highway spending package due next year.

Obama, in his weekly radio and video address on Dec. 6, offered the first details of his plan, saying his administration “will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”

“It is very encouraging to see that transportation is sexy again,” said Mike Joyce, director of legislative affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. “It’s extremely encouraging that President-elect Obama and those that he’s surrounded himself with are speaking in terms of infrastructure. It is a word that we haven’t heard [from the White House] in years.”

However, some officials said they were concerned that the program might weaken momentum in Congress to pass a reauthorization of the national six-year surface transportation program that is set to expire in September.

“Ideally, what you want to do is accelerate the consideration of reauthorization because passing a stimulus package and then thinking that Congress is going to come back in the same year on reauthorization is a stretch,” said Tim Lynch, senior vice president of federation relations for American Trucking Associations.

OOIDA’s Joyce said the focus on infrastructure “needs to be a consistent message, not only come January, or in an economic stimulus bill.  . . . It cannot replace an authorization bill. ”

Meanwhile, Bob Costello, ATA’s senior economist, said, “Infrastructure in a stimulus package is very important to the industry. Ultimately, the improvements in infrastructure will reduce congestion, expedite highway traffic and reduce fuel consumption. It will also stimulate the economy, which will lead to a more rapid recovery from the recession.”

Costello said the real consequence of infrastructure spending “is that it creates jobs.”

As part of the stimulus plan, which congressional leaders have said they expect to pass early next month, Obama said states would have to follow one rule: “use it or lose it.”

“If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money,” he said.

State and local officials said they had billions of dollars in ready-to-go projects.

There are “more than 5,000 ‘ready-to-go’ projects worth $64 billion . . . [that] could be under contract within 180 days, supporting an estimated 1.8 million American jobs, if the funding were made available,” said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, citing a study of his members.

A study by the U.S. Conference of Mayors identified more than 11,000 infrastructure projects, including several freight-specific proposals that could cost $73 billion to complete.

Jane Garvey, a former Department of Transportation official and member of Obama’s transition team, told a meeting of transportation officials that the country’s leaders are experiencing an “infrastructure epiphany.”

“National leaders are recognizing . . . there is an inherent link between transportation and other issues in this economy,” she said Dec. 7. “Transportation not an end in itself, it is really an enabler. It is a way to think about stimulating the economy. It is a way to think about a more progressive energy policy.”

While Obama did not specify a price tag for the stimulus plan, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” he called the spending “down payments on the kind of long-term sustainable growth that we need.”

Jim Berard, spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the ability of Congress to pass a stimulus plan and reauthorization legislation “all depends on political will and the vision articulated by the president-elect as well as the chairman of the committee.”