Casey Dinges, American Society of Civil Engineers senior managing director, notes that former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) supported corporate tax changes as a way to pay for infrastructure. He says that approach "suggests to me that there is a way to get this done and … find a bipartisan solution."
David Raymond, American Council of Engineering Companies CEO, called Obama's foreign earnings' tax "an interesting idea" but added, "It is ironic that the simplest and most practical solution—to increase the gas tax and transition to a vehicle-miles-traveled formula—seems also to be the least politically palatable."
A survey of Obama’s recommendations for other important federal construction accounts shows some big increases but also some cuts.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program construction grants would see its obligation limit go up by 9%, to $3.5 billion.
The budget is tough for the Army Corps of Engineers civil-works program, with a recommended 28% cut, to $1.2 billion, for the Corps’ construction account and a 7% reduction, to $2.7 billion, for operation and maintenance work.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, the budget seeks a small increase for the water infrastructure account. Within the proposed $3.6-billion total, aid to Clean Water state revolving funds (SRFs) would be sliced 23%, to $1.1 billion, but drinking-water SRFs would climb 31%, to $1.2 billion.
Pat Sinicropi, National Association of Clean Water Agencies senior director of government affairs, says that appropriators typically don't agree to cuts in Clean Water SRFs. She adds that her association is hoping that Congress won't go along with Obama's proposed FY16 reductions in the program.
Sinicropi says part of the proposed boost in drinking-water SRFs' spending could be related to well-publicized failures of drinking-water mains in the past year as well as concerns over mitigating algae blooms and high nutrient levels.
The Dept. of Energy’s defense environmental cleanup account, which funds remediation work at former nuclear-weapons facilities, would edge up just 1%, to $5.1 billion.
Among buildings programs, General Services Administration was a big winner in the budget. Under the request, GSA’s new construction account would more than double, to $1.26 billion, and repairs and alterations would get a 52% hike, to $1.25 billion.
Dept. of Defense construction, which focuses mostly on buildings, also did well in the Obama FY16 budget, with a recommended 32% boost, to $8.5 billion.
Dept. of Veterans Affairs major construction, a focus of sharp congressional criticism, would see its budget more than double, to $1.1 billion.
The release of the president’s budget request begins months of hearings and debates in the budget committees, which will seek to draw up an overall budget framework.
That budget legislation isn’t binding, but the work of Appropriations Committees is. Appropriators also will begin to delve into the details of the Obama request, aiming to produce by Sept. 30 the 12 individual spending bills that set the levels for each of the budget’s hundreds of line items.
Congressional Republicans strongly criticized the overall Obama request and pledged to write their own budget blueprint and appropriations measures.
For example, Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) said, “The president has the right to propose all manner of spending and tax increases in his budget request, but I think a Republican-led Congress will insist on greater budget discipline.”
