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Matt Jeanneret 202-289-4434 jmanero@artba.org	Joe Manero 202-289-4434 wtoohey@artba.org	Print this page

Washington, D.C. [April 9, 2001] - The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) will be pushing for a minimum $50 billion per year federal investment in highway, bridge and transit programs as part of congressional reauthorization of the federal surface transportation programs in 2003.

The association’s preliminary goals for the reauthorization legislation were finalized by the group’s Board of Directors at a March 30 meeting in Washington, D.C., capping an 18-month task force project.

The ARTBA federal highway investment minimum target is based on data in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 1999 report to Congress on the condition and investment needs of the nation’s surface transportation system. The report makes clear that a $50 billion annual federal investment is necessary just to maintain current highway and bridge conditions and system performance, ARTBA says, when its data are adjusted to reflect anticipated increases in inflation and traffic growth.

ARTBA points out that there will likely be a $17 billion per year funding gap between anticipated federal highway investment in FY 2003, the last year authorized by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21^st Century (TEA-21), and the $50 billion investment needed.

Actually making significant conditions and performance improvements would require more than a $50 billion federal program, the U.S. DOT data suggest. In fact, the agency report shows cost-benefit analysis would support a $65 billion per year federal highway improvement investment, ARTBA says.

"The Federal-aid Highway Program should no longer be viewed by the Congress, the Executive Branch, the media and the public as ‘just a construction program,’ the ARTBA plan says. "It is rightly put in a larger context. Today, its successes—and shortcomings—impact virtually every aspect of American business and quality of life."

The ARTBA plan urges the Congress and the Bush Administration to consider a combination of at least six revenue options to meet the minimum $50 billion per year investment target:

• Annually drawing down on the estimated $27 billion 2003 balance in the Highway Trust Fund—would provide an additional $5 billion per year. (At its current revenue growth rate, the Highway Trust Fund balance can be expected to balloon to almost $45 billion by FY 2009 absent an increase in post TEA-21 authorizations.);

• Increasing federal highway user fees—each one cent per gallon increase in the federal motor fuels excise would generate $2 billion per year to the HTF;

• Fostering tax-exempt financing for transportation capital projects and the implementation of innovative financing mechanisms like State Infrastructure Banks (SIBs), the proposed Transportation Infrastructure Finance & Innovation Act (TIFIA) and regional transportation compacts to leverage funds;

• Eliminating federal motor fuels user fee evasion—would provide an additional $1.8 billion per year to the HTF;

• Eliminating the federal tax subsidy on ethanol-based motor fuels sales—would generate an additional $1.1 billion annually for the HTF; and

• Indexing the federal motor fuels tax to the Consumer Price Index (CPI)—would generate an estimated additional $900 million per year to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF).

"While some may not want to hear it, it is clear that an increase in the federal motor fuels excise will be necessary just to maintain the nation’s surface transportation status quo," the ARTBA plan says. "Depending on the revenue options chosen by Congress, any objective analysis would show that up to a 10 cents-per-gallon increase in the federal motor fuels excise—eight cents for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) Highway Account and two cents for the HTF Mass Transit Account—may be necessary."

The association cited other government data to draw attention to continuing shortcomings in the nation’s surface transportation system:

• More than 40,000 people die and 3 million are injured in crashes on U.S. roads each year, costing American society more than $160 billion annually. Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death of Americans 6 to 28 years of age and result in more permanent disabling injuries than any other type of accident. Poor road conditions or outdated alignments are a factor in an estimated 13,000 U.S. road-related fatalities each year.

• Almost a fifth of all highway miles in the U.S. (18 percent) are in "poor" or "mediocre" condition. The situation is worst on the nation’s heavily traveled urban interstates, where 36 percent of the pavement mileage is classified as in "poor" or "mediocre" condition.

• Thirty percent—172,572 U.S. bridges—are either "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete." That includes more than one out of every four bridges (27 percent) on urban interstates.

• While two-lane roads account for just about half of total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) each year, they are the sites of 77 percent of all fatal motor vehicle crashes.

• Highway capacity is a growing concern. Fifty-three percent of urban interstate highway miles are congested during the peak travel hour. In the nation’s 68 largest urbanized areas, 64 percent of all travel occurs in "moderate" to "extreme" traffic congestion, compared to only 35 percent in 1982. This congestion costs the U.S. economy more than $70 billion each year, more than triple the $22 billion cost in 1982. Perhaps even more distressing is the cost traffic congestion is imposing on the quality of life for American families.

The ARTBA plan says the importance of the nation’s highway and bridge network to the U.S. economy "is hard to overstate." It points out that America’s road network facilitates:

• 90 percent of all personal travel in the U.S. each year; and

• 76 percent of all domestic freight shipments, with an annual value of more than $5 trillion.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s latest report on the tangible assets of the United States, ARTBA says, federally-aided roads and bridges represent a capital investment well worth protecting, with an asset value of over $25 trillion.

And today, according to the association, publicly financed highway construction activity sustains almost two million American jobs directly or indirectly.

The ARTBA TEA-21 Reauthorization Task Force Report included views from both the public and private sectors of the U.S. transportation construction industry and from agencies and firms that design, build and manage infrastructure for all modes of transportation. More than 100 individuals participated in the project led by Parsons Brinckerhoff senior vice president and former deputy federal highway administrator Gene McCormick and Texas highway contractor Jack Albert, president of Reece-Albert, Inc., in San Angelo.

The 50-plus page ARTBA plan for TEA-21 reauthorization, to be published in April, also calls for:

• Maintaining the TEA-21’s unique and direct budgetary linkage between incoming federal highway user fee revenue and annual federal surface transportation investment, including the Revenue Aligned Budget Authority (RABA) provision.

• Including a "maintenance of effort" provision that makes increased federal highway apportioned funds contingent on a state, at minimum, maintaining its own highway program capital investment at the previous year’s investment level.

• Capitalizing on innovative financing to supplement the core federal highway and mass transit capital improvement programs through initiatives such as SIBs, the proposed TIFIA program and tax-exempt financing for public-private venture capital projects.

• Providing teeth to the TEA-21 mandate to streamline the environmental planning and approval process for highway projects.

• Eliminating the current federal requirement that state and regional transportation improvement plans must be "fiscally constrained"—limited to currently available funding.

• Reforming the transportation conformity requirements with the federal Clean Air Act to eliminate loopholes that have been exploited to unnecessarily delay or stop approved and environmentally sound highway projects.

• Eliminating all federal highway funding sanctions on state and local governments.

• Establishing a new, $1 billion per year federal program to upgrade the safety of high-risk, rural two-lane roads. Over 77 percent of all fatal accidents occur on two-lane roads that generally are not eligible for federal assistance.

• Strengthening federal roadway infrastructure safety programs and increase federal involvement in roadway construction work zone safety initiatives.

• Requiring the U.S. DOT to provide quarterly reports that quantify how federal surface transportation funds are being invested and the anticipated benefits of those investments.

• Ramping up federal support for highway research and technology transfer to $1 billion per year.

• Increasing federal investment in transit capital construction (tracks, tunnels, bridges, facilities and stations) by $1.4 billion per year, as substantiated by U.S. DOT data, to add capacity to the overall ground transportation system. This can be achieved by limiting federal investment in non-capital construction transit activities that are more appropriately handled at the state and local level.

• Establishing a dedicated funding mechanism for capital construction investments in intercity passenger rail that does not utilize federal highway user fee revenues. This could include allowing tax-exempt bonds to be issued to finance high-speed rail capital improvements.

ARTBA, which will celebrate its 100^th Anniversary in 2002, represents the collective interests of the U.S. transportation construction industry in the Nation’s Capital.