President wants $50 billion for transportation ASAP

Six year plan

Jon Boyd, Sep 07, 10.

President Obama announced a new transportation strategy at a labor conference in Milwaukee, according to Darren Goode at The Hill:

President Obama on Monday called for an upfront investment of $50 billion to improve roads, railways and runways as part of a larger six-year strategy to update the nation’s aging infrastructure.

Obama announced the strategy at the Milwaukee Laborfest in Wisconsin hosted by the AFL-CIO and Milwaukee Area Labor Council and was joined by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The president wants Congress to approve this first-year $50 billion “as soon as possible” and pay for it by scaling back oil and gas industry tax incentives, a senior administration official said.

“Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads — enough to circle the world six times,” Obama said, according to remarks prepared for delivery the White House released ahead of his speech Monday afternoon. “We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways — enough to stretch coast-to-coast.

According to the Hill, the President continued by denying that this new plan is not another round of stimulus; rather, he said the $50 billion would be a frontloaded investment as a part of a six-year plan to modernize aging rail, airport runways, air traffic control systems, and roadways. President Obama suggested that the current program is wasteful and complicated, and said he wants a streamlined, competitve program to replace formula funding and earmarks, the Hill article said.

The last surface transportation plan, SAFETEA-LU, was a six-year plan that expired in September 2009, and Congress voted last year for a temporary extension:

It is the first time that Obama has specifically begun to outline his strategy for a new six-year surface transportation plan, nearly a year after the last congressional strategy expired.

Obama did include infrastructure investment in high-speed rail and other infrastructure spending in last year’s economic stimulus plan. “The president has been ambitious to date in the area of investment,” a senior administration official said on a conference call with reporters. “And this is the continuation of that investment.”

Congress has a history of taking longer than intended to update transportation policy. Lawmakers had to extend surface transportation law for almost two years before approving the last surface transportation reauthorization bill in 2005. That bill expired in September last year and will likely continue to be extended into next year:

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