Press Releases and Newsletters2021-07-29T15:50:07+00:00

Press Releases and Newsletters

$8.7 BILLION HIGHWAY RESCISSION TAKES EFFECT (TRANSPORTATION WEEKLY)

$8.7 BILLION HIGHWAY RESCISSION TAKES EFFECT (TRANSPORTATION WEEKLY)

Last night, after the Senate failed to pass legislation to the contrary (which would have died in the House in any case), the long-scheduled $8.708 billion rescission of highway contract authority balances held by states took effect pursuant to section 10212 of the 2005 SAFETEA-LU law.

The attached table shows how the rescission broke down into three large categories, which we have named 100 Percent Real Money, 90 Percent Real Money, and Potential Money.  (Click here for NC specific programmatic numbers.)

**The 100 Percent Real Money represents equity bonus contract authority dollars in the mandatory and special categories.  This means that for each individual dollar of this contract authority, a corresponding dollar of “no-year” obligation authority was attached (or, in the case of the mandatory money, no limitation applied in the first place).  These dollars stay valid forever (unless rescinded) and could have been used by a state for any purpose (If they had not been rescinded).  Some states wisely spent all of their on-hand money in these categories before the FHWA books closed on the 25th; others came close (Florida, for example, lost a total of four cents of this money in the rescission).  A total of $334.3 million of this kind of money was rescinded, with Texas ($102.7 million) and Illinois ($80.8 million) taking disproportionate hits.  22 states (CA, CO, CT, FL, ID, IN, IA, ME, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NY, NC, ND, OH, OR, RI, SC, WA, and WY) lost none of this kind of money or less than one dollar.

**The 90 Percent Real Money represents contract authority for the Appalachian Development Highway System.  ADHS contract authority gets special no-year obligation authority, but not quite at the dollar-for-dollar ratio that equity bonus gets.  The ratio changes each year – in FY 2005, each dollar of ADHS CA got 82.0 cents in obligation authority, but this rose in each subsequent year to 93.6 cents in FY 2009.  It is impossible to know how much obligation authority was lost in this rescission without knowing in what year each dollar of the ADHS CA was provided.  We are rounding off to 90 percent.  A total of $117.9 million in ADHS contract authority was rescinded last night, which would mean somewhere between $100 million and $108 million in real obligation dollars.  Only Appalachian states get ADHS money in the first place, and Pennsylvania and West Virginia took the biggest hits.

**The Potential Money represents rescissions of contract authority across all other formula programs.  All of this contract authority is subject to the overall annual limitation on federal-aid highways formula obligations.  (In FY 2009, out of the total $40.70 billion highway program obligation limitation, $30.26 billion was formula limitation that covered all of these programs.)  We call these potential dollars because none of the money can ever be obligated and spent unless the state dedicates some of its formula obligation limitation dollars for that purpose.  States always (until now, at least) have balances of formula contract authority on-hand that far exceed the annual obligation limitation.

In a normal year, an $8.26 billion rescission of Potential Money on September 30 would not be that big of a deal since states would then receive around $36 billion in new formula apportionments at the start of the fiscal year on October 1.  But since no authorization law is in place, the continuing resolution will only provide $2 billion in new formula apportionments to states in October, meaning that some states will have contract authority cash flow problems in some highway funding categories.

While some legislators hope to “make states whole” from the rescission in the next highway bill extension, this is easier said than done.  Any extra dollars given to Texas and Illinois, for example, would have to come out of other states’ apportionments, creating winners and losers and otherwise blowing up the highway funding formulas that were so laboriously hashed out during the SAFETEA-LU debate.  States could only be made whole by increasing total program spending and giving the states that lost Real Money in the rescission some extra, and both the House and Senate’s proposed extensions would freeze FY 2010 contract authority and obligation totals at the FY 2009 levels.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2009 – 11:45 A.M.

17 Contracts Totaling More Than $65 Million Awarded for Highway, Ferry Projects Across North Carolina (Press Release)

17 Contracts Totaling More Than $65 Million Awarded for Highway, Ferry Projects Across North Carolina

RALEIGH — Gov. Bev Perdue today announced that 17 contracts totaling $65.2 million have been awarded for highway, bridge and ferry projects across North Carolina, including eight projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The N.C. Department of Transportation awarded the contracts to the lowest respective bidder, as required by state law. A list of the projects is here.

“These projects will stimulate economic growth by creating and sustaining jobs for North Carolinians while making lasting investments in our transportation system,” Perdue said.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, every $1 million spent on transportation creates 30 jobs, and according to the construction industry, every dollar invested in transportation generates $6 in economic impact.

The eight recovery projects are located in Alamance, Alleghany, Buncombe, Caswell, Madison, Northampton, Orange and Surry counties. The nine other projects are located in Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Harnett, Henderson, Hyde, McDowell and Person counties. See the attached list for respective start dates.

The bids received on all 17 projects advertised came in 21.7 percent, or about $18 million, below NCDOT estimates.

For more information about funding for infrastructure improvements in North Carolina, as well as other NCDOT projects and activities, visit: www.ncdot.gov.

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What Comes Next for Our Metro Nation: The New Forces Driving Regionalism by Bruce Katz

What Comes Next for Our Metro Nation: The New Forces Driving Regionalism

Cities, Community Development, Economic Development, Regions and States

Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program

Thank you for the invitation to speak today. It is a pleasure to return to Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota.

And I think now is a particularly good time to discuss issues around competitiveness, sustainable growth and metropolitan governance.

It’s the right time because of the difficult economic and fiscal environment in this state and across the country and the pressure of new social and environmental imperatives. These forces compel the U.S. to rethink how we grow and demand a new approach to metropolitan governance that is multi-jurisdictional, multi-dimensional, accountable and transparent.

And this is the right place to have this discussion since the Twin Cities has been an innovator on metro governance since the creation of the Metropolitan Council in the 1960s. Your hard earned lessons have national implications and import.

I want to make five major points today.

First, America faces serious challenges to its prosperity: What will drive productive growth in the coming decades? Can growth be shared across a broader segment of our population? Can growth be sustainable? The Twin Cities are not immune to these challenges. The recession has unveiled your own vulnerabilities and the breadth and complexity of the task ahead.

Second, restoring national prosperity is dependent on enhancing metropolitan prosperity. Our metropolitan areas are the engines of national prosperity because they concentrate at an unprecedented level the assets that matter, assets like innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality places. There is, in essence, no U.S. economy bur rather a network of sophisticated, globally integrated metro economies which will lead this recovery.

Third, there are deep, structural hurdles to metropolitan prosperity. Given the super-sized challenges they face, metros cannot go it alone and ultimately require dependable national and state partners to succeed. In addition, the governance of U.S. metros has not kept pace with their economic evolution. Metro governance is almost uniformly characterized by fragmentation and balkanization, by cultures of competition rather than one of collaboration. Here the Met Council experience, though not perfect, is instructive for the nation.

Fourth, our Metro Nation demands a national Metro Policy, both to leverage the assets that concentrate in metro areas (thereby unleashing economic potential) as well as help metros align their governance more closely with the geography of the economy and the environment. We need, in short, to fundamentally re-imagine and remake the partnership between the federal government, states, localities and the private and voluntary sectors to strengthen metropolitan economies, build a strong and diverse middle class, and grow in environmentally sustainable ways.

Fifth, there are early signs that Barack Obama’s administration “gets” Metro Policy. The president clearly understands the new spatial dynamics of America and has publicly embraced the notion that federal policies must focus on unleashing the economic potential of metro America. He has established a new White House Office on Urban Affairs to communicate a new vision of federal purpose and partnership and help coordinate the disparate agencies of the national government. The Recovery Act and the FY 2010 budget both illustrate a commitment to making investments, long deferred, in critical market shaping tools like advanced research, community colleges, next generation infrastructure, and sustainable development. And there is further evidence that the federal government is rethinking the delivery system for national programs, with emphasis increasingly placed on encouraging multi-jurisdictional and multi-dimensional efforts rather than silo driven interventions.

Humphrey Center, University of Minnesota
September 23, 2009

GOP Blocks Plan to Use Bailout Fund to Preserve $8.7B in Transport Money (DC.Streetsblog.org)

GOP Blocks Plan to Use Bailout Fund to Preserve $8.7B in Transport Money (DC.Streetsblog.org)

A bipartisan bid to extend existing federal transportation law for three months — and tap the TARP bailout fund to avert the cancellation of $8.7 billion in contract authority — was rejected on the Senate floor last night after GOP senators insisted on using stimulus money, rather than bailout cash, to fix the problem.

Was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) the force holding up the transport bill extension? (Photo: NOLA.com)The drama played out hours before the midnight deadline for preserving the $8.7 billion, the majority of which would go toward state road and bridge work. Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and her panel’s senior Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), agreed with their respective party leaders to shift $300 million in bailout money as a temporary fix to prevent state DOTs from canceling projects.
But the GOP side of the aisle objected, with Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) insisting that the chamber vote on Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) proposal to patch the transportation contracting gap with unused money from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus law.

Johanns’ argument on behalf of Vitter: the bailout has already been used for purposes for which it wasn’t intended, and the stimulus law included transportation aid, so the latter should be utilized to save infrastructure projects.

“There are many who believe that the TARP money, which was originally designed to buy toxic assets, has drifted so far away from its original purpose that we haven’t kept faith with the taxpayer who paid the bill for all this,” Johanns explained. “On the other hand, the stimulus — which, incidentally, I did not support — had money in it to do highways and that sort of thing, and that is where the objection is coming from.”

Boxer and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the majority party’s chief vote-counter, appeared perplexed by the rationale behind the objection. “

[Johanns] said the TARP money was misspent, and we are saying we agree with the premise; that this [bailout] is a better place to take money [from] rather than to take it away from tax cuts to working families in the stimulus.”

Democrats had no intention of allowing a vote on Vitter’s long-standing legislative push to transfer stimulus money to the nation’s highway trust fund, and so the three-month extension was abandoned. As a result, the $8.7 billion will begin to be yanked from state DOT coffers today, leaving the road lobby as stunned as Boxer and Durbin.

Still, one question remains. Was Vitter the only senator objecting to the use of bailout funds to halt the contract cancellation? In a statement last night, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) credited a “group of Republicans” with holding up an agreement:

Delaying this federal investment will affect transportation projects that have the potential to create and sustain jobs, improve the transportation system and save families time and money. Now more than ever, it is irresponsible to deny our communities of these economic benefits. This group of Republicans needs to lift its roadblock immediately and help America get back to work.
Meanwhile, the loss of the $8.7 billion in authority is not hitting every state equally. The “rescission,” as it is known in Washington parlance, applies to federal money that was not already obligated to road, bridge, or other transport work. The Oregon DOT, having acted quickly on their annual infusion of cash, is fairly unfazed.

“We make it a point to spend or obligate every federal dollar we get and not leave any on the table,” ODOT spokesman Patrick Cooney told the Daily Journal of Commerce.
by Elana Schor on October 1, 2009

Bid to extend highway funding hits procedural wall (The National Journal)

Transportation: Bid to extend highway funding hits procedural wall (The National Journal)

Despite backing from both parties, a Senate deal to extend surface
transportation law for three months and restore $8.7 billion in spending
authority collapsed Wednesday night when several Republicans objected to
the source of money to pay for the fix.

The breakdown came just hours before the existing law expired with the
midnight end of the fiscal year, leaving states facing the prospect of
halting projects and laying off thousands of workers because the one-month
extension approved by both chambers does not include the renewed spending
authority.

The measure already appeared doomed because of objections from House
Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar, but the
last-minute objection gave Senate Democrats a chance to assign blame to the
opposing party rather than their own.

“All of our states are going to suffer; 17,000 people will be thrown out
of work because the Republicans cannot agree with both the chairman and
ranking member,” Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara
Boxer said.

“There is plenty of blame to go around tonight, but the focus should be on
the fact that Congress failed, and as a result, thousands of American jobs
are now in doubt. This is simply inexcusable,” said Environment and Public
Works ranking member James Inhofe.

Boxer, Inhofe, Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell had
agreed on using $300 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Fund to pay for
unused spending authority in the 2005 surface transportation bill that
would be otherwise eliminated.

But a group of GOP conservatives, taking a position Inhofe had since
dropped, wanted to tap unallocated stimulus money. That approach was pushed
by Sen. David Vitter, R-La. The GOP objections sunk the bill it was too
late to fight through cloture and so the Senate had to pass it by unanimous
consent.

After the objection, Boxer and Senate Majority Whip Durbin blasted
Republicans. But the bill already appeared to be dead on arrival because of
Oberstar’s objections.

In a statement released before the Senate measure stalled, Oberstar said
the Senate was acting irresponsibly by moving a version unacceptable to the
House because it would increase spending and violate pay/go rules. He also
argued that the Senate version included earmarks that went to only a few
states and were not competitive enough.

Earlier in the day, the Senate followed the House in passing a continuing
resolution with a one-month extension of the law, but Oberstar said that
would provide states with “almost $1 billion less in highway infrastructure
funding than the amount provided under the first month of the House bill’s
investment levels.”

Oberstar called that “unacceptable and irresponsible at a time when the
nation is beginning to recover from the worst economic recession since the
1930s.” He wants by next year to pass a long-term highway extension bill,
while many Democrats would like to put off the issue until after the 2010
elections.

Despite the battling over lost jobs and concern from cash-strapped states,
it was not immediately clear how severe the immediate impact of the failure
to a pass a bill with the elimination of the $8.7 billion recession would
be.

Senators noted the one-month extension lessens the fallout.

“Whatever happens, they’ve got the 30 days,” said Environment and Public
Works Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee ranking member George
Voinovich, R-Ohio.

“We could fix it at a later date,” Boxer acknowledged on the Senate floor.
“But every day that goes by makes it more difficult.”

Inhofe declined to identify the three GOP objectors, but said they opposed
using TARP funds because they had previously signed a letter advocating
using that money only for debt reduction.

Inhofe said that once the objections are cleared, the Senate and House
should be able to pass a three-month extension with the rescission fix. “I
think that can be done and that can be done tomorrow without having
everything fall apart tonight,” Inhofe said.

By Dan Friedman and Darren Goode
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/cda_20091001_9845.php

Congress Passes CR, Includes 1 Month Extension for SAFETEA-LU (The Hill)

Senate clears stop-gap spending measure for Obama’s signature (The Hill)

The Senate passed a stop-gap spending measure, allowing government to continuing operating beyond Wednesday, the last day of the fiscal year.

The continuing resolution, cleared largely along party lines by the Senate on a 62-38 vote, extends funding to government agencies at the levels in the 2009 appropriations bills, which were set to expire at the end of the day. The move was needed because lawmakers have sent only one of the 12 spending bills funding government for 2010 to the president for his signature.

By approving the continuing resolution, lawmakers were avoiding a government shutdown that would be disruptive to hundreds of programs, Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said. The House approved the same measure last week, and President Obama is expected to sign it Wednesday evening.

Attached to the budget measure was the first of the dozen spending bills to make it through conference and to President Obama, the $4.7 billion legislative branch spending bill, which provides funding for congressional offices.

Also attached was a provision allowing the Postal Service to defer $4 billion in payments to a fund for its future retirees’ health benefits. The agency said the move was necessary to help it pay back a $5.4 billion cash shortfall it expects in 2010.

Republicans largely opposed the spending package, protesting that Democrats put them in the position of either voting for a government shutdown or new spending, neither of which they wanted.They criticized Democrats for proposing a 5.8 percent boost in spending for legislative branch operations and for limiting amendments to the continuing resolution by linking it to a spending bill.

“That flies in the face of the fundamentals upon which the United States Senate functions,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a floor speech.

By Walter Alarkon – 09/30/09 05:53 PM ET

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/61025-senate-clears-stop-gap-spending-measure-for-obamas-signature

Shortchanged again, WNC demands highway dollars back (Smokey Mountain News)

Shortchanged again, WNC demands highway dollars back

Western North Carolina has steadily lost out on tens of millions in federal highway dollars over the past decade, despite the money being specifically earmarked for the region.

Mountain leaders sent a message to both Raleigh and Washington this week to restore a special pot of money for highway projects in the mountains. The money was being siphoned off by Raleigh and doled out across the entire state rather than going to WNC as intended by federal legislation dating back to 1965.

“This money was set aside to help the far western counties, but over time it got put into the general pool,” said Ronnie Beale, Macon County commissioner chairman.

The special pot of highway money was supposed to improve the lot of Appalachian people. The region historically suffered from higher poverty and unemployment rates. Its isolation and lack of high-speed highways was considered a major culprit.

The interstate system connecting the rest of the country largely bypassed Appalachia, skirting the rugged region when possible due to high costs of road construction in the mountains. To counter the topographic challenges and rectify the isolation brought about by lack of highways, federal lawmakers earmarked a special pot of money each year to fund the Appalachian Development Highway System.

But a minor accounting change that occurred in the mid-1990s kept the money from reaching its intended destination. Instead of arriving as a special appropriation, the money was bundled along with the rest of the federal transportation budget when being sent to the state. The state claimed it could not unbundle the money. Once bundled in with the rest, the state claimed it was obligated to divvy it up among the entire state as it did the rest of the federal transportation money.

“It wasn’t considered extra money, and North Carolina law says if it is not extra money, it gets caught up in the state’s distribution formula,” said Joel Setzer, head of the N.C. Department of Transportation Division 14, a 10-county mountain region. “It is my belief that violates the spirit of the Appalachian program. It is a belief shared by many,” Setzer said.

A committee of leaders from six counties that comprise the Southwestern Regional Transportation Planning Organization adopted a resolution this week condemning the practice. The committee includes commissioners from six counties and mayors of several towns. The resolution calls on the special highway funding to be restored to the region. In particular, it asks the federal government to separate the money from the rest of the state’s transportation budget so the state wouldn’t face the challenge of unbundling it.

The special federal pot designated for WNC is supposed to be $30 million a year. One road project that stands to benefit from the Appalachian highway construction dollars is a missing link of Corridor K (see related article.) The road would blaze a four-lane highway around Robbinsville, relieving a narrow two-lane bottleneck for people traveling to Murphy. It has been in the planning stages for decades, but carries a price tag of nearly $800 million to finish a 17-mile missing link through Graham County.

Setzer suggested that the message would carry even more weight if a similar resolution was adopted by counties and towns across the region. Macon and Graham counties have already done so. “We have to keep hollering louder and louder and louder,” Beale said. The state has stockpiled some of the money, with around $150 million accumulated but unspent, Setzer said. Setzer hopes the mountains can draw from the funds once the accounting classification is changed.

By Becky Johnson • Staff writer

Week of 9/30/09

The Countdown Clock Is On for Federal Transportation Funding

Here’s the latest and greatest out of DC. 

The Continuing Appropriations Resolution (CR), passed by the House and being debated in the Senate today, should be voted on at 5:30pm.  This is the bill to fund the federal government whose fiscal year ends tonight and begins anew tomorrow, October 1st.  Through a technical mishap, the one month extension of federal highway money is not included at this point. 

In order for the one month extension to be a part of the CR the Senate must have unanimous consent to allow a vote on H. Con. Res. 191.  If this does not happen federal transportation funding will be cut off tomorrow. 

Now the “unless.”  The Senate is also trying to negotiate unanimous consent to allow a vote today to extend federal transportation funding for three months in a separate bill.  This is considered more of a long shot. 

Might this three month extension bill include a repeal of the rescission?  The House has said they will only consider legislation from the Senate on the repeal that includes a $490m offsetting spending reduction to cover the cost. 

I will let you know what happens at the end of the day!   

Julie

The Countdown Clock Is On for Federal Transportation Funding

Here’s the latest and greatest out of DC. 

The Continuing Appropriations Resolution (CR), passed by the House and being debated in the Senate today, should be voted on at 5:30pm.  This is the bill to fund the federal government whose fiscal year ends tonight and begins anew tomorrow, October 1st.  Through a technical mishap, the one month extension of federal highway money is not included at this point. 

In order for the one month extension to be a part of the CR the Senate must have unanimous consent to allow a vote on H. Con. Res. 191.  If this does not happen federal transportation funding will be cut off tomorrow. 

Now the “unless.”  The Senate is also trying to negotiate unanimous consent to allow a vote today to extend federal transportation funding for three months in a separate bill.  This is considered more of a long shot. 

Might this three month extension bill include a repeal of the rescission?  The House has said they will only consider legislation from the Senate on the repeal that includes a $490m offsetting spending reduction to cover the cost. 

I will let you know what happens at the end of the day!   

Julie

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