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Federal Highway
Program in Jeopardy,
Washington, D.C. [January 22, 2002]—The American Road & Transportation Builders Association's (ARTBA) Executive Committee January 18 pledged a hard-hitting grassroots lobbying and advocacy campaign to avert a catastrophic cut in the fiscal year (FY) 2003 federal highway program. The association's volunteer leadership made the announcement during a meeting at the ARTBA headquarters building in Washington, D.C. At issue are reports from the U.S. Department of Transportation that the FY 2003 budget President Bush will send to Congress the first week of February will likely call for a 30 percent cut in federal highway program spending due to recessionary impacts on Highway Trust Fund revenues. The cut—from a record $31.8 billion investment this year to $22.7 billion in FY 2003, which begins Oct. 1—would be precipitated by strict enforcement of the "Revenue Aligned Budget Authority" (RABA) provision of TEA-21. RABA ties the program level to the trust fund revenue stream. "A 30 percent reduction in federal investment would have devastating impacts on highway safety, congestion mitigation and American jobs," said ARTBA Chairman John Wight, executive vice president of HNTB Corporation, based in Wayne, N.J. "And it is unnecessary when there is a $19 billion balance in the Highway Trust Fund." Wight said ARTBA first reported the possibility of a RABA adjustment problem in August 2001 based on its review of U.S. Treasury Department reports on trust fund revenue collections. In September 2001, the association expressed its concerns in letters to U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta. Over the past five months, ARTBA's government relations staff held briefings on the RABA situation with key congressional transportation leaders and staff. In January 2002, ARTBA has met with White House Office of Management & Budget officials and the Senate Budget Committee on the matter. The association outlined the job losses a program cut would precipitate and argued that such a cut would be poor public policy when the Highway Trust Fund has an unspent balance. The RABA situation will be a main focus of the ARTBA, National Asphalt Pavement Association, American Concrete Pavement Association, and National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association joint Legislative Conference and Washington Fly-In, to be held Feb. 5-6. More than 125 industry leaders are expected to visit with their members of Congress on the issue. Celebrating its 100th Anniversary, ARTBA represents the U.S. transportation construction in the Nation's Capital. ###
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