President Should Sign The Transportation Equity Act

President Should Sign The Transportation Equity Act
June 24, 2005

Every six years Congress must reauthorize a new highway or transportation bill. The bill came up for renewal last year but Congress and the president were unable to agree on a final amount. The bill, officially known as The Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (TEA-LU) was reintroduced this year. I joined the majority of my House colleagues in support of the bill, which passed by the wide margin of 417 to 9.

The Senate passed a $295 billion version of the transportation bill. The legislation passed the Senate by an 89 to 11 margin. Clearly, this legislation is viewed positively by the majority of lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, among Members of both parties, and legislators from all parts of the nation.

The transportation bill now awaits a House-Senate conference to reconcile the differences. It has been held up there because the president has threatened to veto the bill if it exceeds the $284 billion in the House version. If the president uses his veto, it would be the first of his administration. By not vetoing a single bill during his first term, President Bush became the first president in over 175 years to serve a full four-year term without vetoing a bill (John Quincy Adams was the only other full-term president that did not veto any legislation). The Transportation Equity Act is an important. It is my hope that the president recognizes the value of this legislation and signs it into law.

The transportation bill began in 1956 as part of President Dwight Eisenhower's interstate highway program. The bill distributes funds, primarily collected through federal gasoline taxes (now 18.4 cents per gallon of gas) to the states for building and repairing roads and highways and other community priorities.

Maintaining safe roads is among the reasons why the transportation bill needs to be renewed every six years. The group Funding Fairness estimates that for every $100 million spent on highway safety improvements, 145 fewer traffic fatalities will occur over a ten-year period.

The current 6-year funding bill (TEA-21, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century) expired in September 2003, but funding was continued through legislative extensions. In May, Congress was forced to pass a seventh extension. The current extension extends TEA-21 for another 30 days, to allow House and Senate conferees enough time to reconcile the two versions of the bill and get it to the president's desk.

Most importantly, beyond repairs that make our roads safer, the transportation act is a jobs creation bill. The Transportation Act means jobs for American families and a significant number of jobs for Ohio. Funding Fairness estimates that for every $100 million spent on highway construction nationwide, approximately 4,200 jobs are created annually.

The transportation bill doesn't just create construction jobs it results in the production of more capital goods. The American Road and Transportation Builders Association has estimated that for every $1 billion in federal funds spent on roads, sales increase by $100 million for the companies that produce machines for performing roadwork. Further, they estimate that each billion dollars in the transportation act boosts asphalt sales by up to $100 million for the largest producers of asphalt and concrete.

As the old joke goes, Ohio has two seasons; winter and construction. Without a new fully funded long-term transportation bill soon, this year's construction season will end without the state receiving necessary funds to continue roadwork and no new related job creation. The House-Senate conferees will soon produce a common version of TEA-LU, which both chambers will likely pass overwhelmingly. I hope this legislation will be signed into law in short order to allow critical highway and road projects to continue uninterrupted and more jobs created for Ohio families.

http://www.house.gov/miketurner/news/columns/6.24.05.shtml