UDOT blasts delay of highway bill

Like drivers honking and making naughty gestures at a slow driver in the fast lane, the Utah Department of Transportation joined a bipartisan chorus of House members Thursday to urge the Obama administration not to delay — as it has proposed — a new six-year highway-project authorization bill.

Instead, they asked during a House Transportation Committee hearing that the administration hit the accelerator and help pass a new bill quickly, as well as solve some short-term funding problems that could soon halt federal funding to ongoing road-construction projects in the states.

Carlos Braceras, UDOT's deputy director, who represented a national association of state transportation officials at the hearing, said a mere 18-month extension of current authorizations as proposed by the administration would be a nightmare for the states.

"We need to have a predictable, well-funded multiyear authorization measure" to plan and build road projects long-term, he said.

But Roy Kienitz, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said the administration wants to delay a new six-year authorization bill until it and Congress figure how to solve short-term funding problems in the Highway Trust Fund.

Shortfalls there may prevent the federal government from fully reimbursing states for its share of highway construction beginning next month.

Committee members of both parties and Braceras urged the administration to solve those funding problems now and to pass a new long-term bill.

Braceras said the short-term funding problem "is something that keeps me awake at night. We have contracts going right now. And we only have two weeks left to solve this issue."

He added, "It's critical that Congress transfer an additional $8 billion from the General Fund to help get us through the fiscal year (which ends Sept. 30), so that we can have surety in being able to pay those contractors that are working today out on our projects."

Braceras said the nation's state transportation officials also estimate "that an additional $10 billion to $12 billion will be needed to be transferred into the Highway Trust Fund in order to ensure solvency through the end of fiscal 2010."

Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., said, "We're not going to wait 18 months" before passing a long-term highway bill, as the administration has asked. Members from both parties supported that, and said trust-fund problems could be solved quickly.

"We need to move ahead now," Oberstar said. "Inertia is the enemy of progress, and we don't have time to wait. The economy doesn't have time to wait."

However, a Senate transportation committee earlier this week passed a bill that approves the 18-month extension sought by the administration, setting up a showdown with the House on the issue.

e-mail: lee@desnews.com