ARTBA Urges Senate to Maintain Current
Highway Program Funding Level in FY 2003 Budget

Hill Testifies Before Senate Environment & Public
Works Committee—Also Calls for State "Maintenance
of Effort" Provision in Next Highway Bill

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

Washington, D.C. [February 11, 2002]—One hundred years ago Feb. 13, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) was organized to lead the charge for federal investment in highways. ARTBA is still at it.

In testimony Feb. 11 on Capitol Hill before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, ARTBA Senior Vice Chairman Tom Hill urged senators to maintain federal highway funding next year at the $31.8 billion level to save American jobs and prevent a serious disruption in state highway improvement programs.

Congress has begun debate on a proposal—driven by the recession's impact on forecasted federal highway user fee collections—that would cut federal investment in state and local highway improvement programs by $8.6 billion in Fiscal Year 2003, which begins Oct. 1.

The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee called the hearing to discuss the looming highway-funding crisis and to seek ideas for reauthorization of the federal surface transportation programs, which are due to expire next year. The Federal Highway Administration, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials were also among those testifying.

"That $8.6 billion is already sustaining 360,000 American jobs in companies like mine," Hill, chief executive officer of Oldcastle Materials, Inc., the nation's largest highway materials supplier and paving contractor, told senators. "You wave a magic wand and take it away just because someone in Washington made a mistake in predicting the future of the economy and those jobs will be lost. Real American workers and companies will be hurt. This is a crisis for our industry."

Hill pointed out "This is not just a 2003 problem." He said state transportation departments across the nation are already delaying projects just on the hint of reduced federal funding. "In response, companies like mine are curtailing capital investment. Our employees are deeply concerned about their jobs and their families."

Noting the $20 billion balance in the Highway Trust Fund, Hill urged the senators to use the trust fund to avert a cut in the highway program.

The transportation construction industry executive also encouraged the senators to include a "maintenance of effort" provision in the next highway program authorization bill that requires states to maintain or increase their own highway funding levels in order to receive federal funds. "The promise of TEA-21 has not been fully realized," Hill said. A number of states have substituted federal dollars for their own, he said, resulting in uneven growth in highway capital investment despite an over 40 percent increase in federal funding.

ARTBA research, he said, found that since the current federal highway law was enacted in 1998, 24 states had not maintained their own 1997 level of financial investment in highway capital projects in at least one of the next three years. If they had, Hill said, total highway capital investment nationwide would have been $2.1 billion higher over the period.

The Washington, D.C.-based ARTBA, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2002, is the transportation construction industry's primary advocate before the Congress, federal courts and agencies and media.

# # #

EDITOR'S NOTE: To view the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee's Feb. 11 hearing, visit C-SPAN and select "Hearing on the FY '03 Transportation & Infrastructure Budget."