Obama Weighs In, Supports New Round of Public-Works Funding

...promising that everybody is talking about infrastructure, that creating jobs in the infrastructure field is important, and that spending money for infrastructure creates jobs and creates them quickly.”

A new survey shows there are plenty of transportation projects beyond the thousands funded in ARRA that could get under way quickly if Congress provides the money. The survey, released on Dec. 2, was compiled by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials with the American Public Transportation Association. It counts 9,588 transportation projects, totaling $69.55 billion. Of those, 7,497 are highway projects, valued at $47.26 billion, and 983 are transit projects, pegged at $9.77 billion. All 9,588 projects were deemed ready to proceed, defined as being able to “move through the federal approval process within 120 days of enactment of authorizing legislation.” That’s a broader definition than the “ready-to-go” language used in the ARRA measure and could open the door to larger-scale projects.

Negotiations on a jobs bill are moving quickly in the House, where Pelosi would like to see a bill passed by the end of the year. She said on Dec. 3 that Democrats are working on a “safety net” bill that would extend unemployment and health benefits, as well as legislation to fund infrastructure projects and provide financial help to fiscally strapped states. Pelosi said she would like to use TARP funds to finance the infrastructure-state fiscal-aid proposal.

But Republicans oppose that idea. House GOP Leader John Boehner (Ohio) says using TARP funds to pay for the legislation Pelosi is considering would be “a very big mistake. The TARP money was intended to solve an economic emergency in the financial sector....It should be used to lower the budget deficit and the national debt.”

Nevertheless, House Democrats are moving ahead. “They’re at the table now, negotiating this thing,” says Jay Hansen, National Asphalt Pavement Association vice president for government affairs. “The House is champing at the bit,” says Shoaf. “The Senate has a little longer-term view in mind.”

With the year-end congressional recess fast approaching, getting a bill through Congress this year will be difficult. “This is not a slam dunk,” Hansen says. Even if the House can pass its jobs bill quickly, lawmakers will have to come up with a vehicle that can surmount the Senate’s tall procedural hurdles.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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