Obama urging lawmakers to pass transportation extension

Will lawmakers reach a deal?

Louis Cutaia, Sep 02, 11.

Federal highway programs and fuel taxes are set to expire at the end of the month unless Congress passes a short term extension. The current transportation act, SAFETEA-LU (the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users) expired in 2009 and has been extended seven times since. Nearly 1 million jobs will be effected if such an extension is not reached, according to a story in The Associated Press:

Similarly, authority for the Federal Aviation Administration expires Sept. 16. The agency has been operating under a series of 21 short-term extensions since 2007. A standoff between the House and Senate partially shut down the FAA for two weeks this summer. Nearly 4,000 employees were furloughed, more than 200 stop-work orders were issued for airport construction and other projects, and tens of thousands of workers in construction-related industries were laid off.

Layoffs in the ailing construction industry would be many times greater than that if highway programs expire, transportation experts said.

“It’s inexcusable to put more jobs at risk in an industry that’s already been one of the hardest hit over the last decade,” Obama said during a speech in the Rose Garden. He called on Congress to pass both the highway and FAA bills.

The president said 4,000 workers would be immediately furloughed without pay if the highway program isn’t extended, and a significant delay could lead to 1 million workers losing their jobs over the next year.

As the September 2011 deadline looms, President Obama pushes Congress to keep surface transportation spending at current levels which could help spur additional job creation, according to a story in the Huffington Post

A White House official tells The Huffington Post that the president will hold an event Wednesday alongside Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Operating Officer David Chavern calling on Congress to pass a “clean extension” of surface transportation funding.

“The president will discuss the importance of moving forward with this extension to protect nearly a million American jobs and highlight the opportunity we have to work in a bipartisan way to further invest in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure to strengthen our economy and create new jobs across the country,” the aide said.

It remains to be determined whether the president will also include the issue in his highly publicized speech on job creation, set for next week. Administration officials were mum on the matter when asked about it by The Huffington Post, choosing instead to speak in broad strokes about what the president will discuss.

But Democrats on and off the Hill say that the current spending levels must be maintained if the party is to be viewed as serious about jobs. Surface transportation spending is set to run out on September 30; if it is allowed to lapse, thousands of federal construction jobs would simply be lost.

As President Obama met with transportation, construction, and labor interests on Wednesday, he called on Congress to make transportation investment a priority, according to a story in the AASHTO Journal

Standing in the White House Rose Garden flanked by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and other top federal transportation officials, President Obama said that Congress must extend the current surface transportation act, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which expired in 2009. Congress has extended the Act seven times and the current extension expires September 30.

“If we allow the transportation bill to expire, almost 4,000 (USDOT) workers will be furloughed immediately without pay. If it is delayed just 10 days, we will lose nearly $1 billion in highway and transit revenue. That’s money we can never get back. And if it is delayed even longer, almost 1 million workers could lose their jobs over the course of the next year,” President Obama said during the brief, eight-minute session.

Last week, Susan Martinovich, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials president and director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, said during a news conference in Louisville, Kentucky, that more than 500,000 jobs and countless state and local projects to modernize and improve transportation across the U.S. are in jeopardy if Congress does not act quickly