Faster Better Safer: Americans for Transportation Mobility

October 26, 2009

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS:

The Americans for Transportation Mobility (ATM) Coalition strongly urges you to extend the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation, Equity Act - A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) for six months before the current short-term extension expires on October 31.

Transportation stakeholders, including states and localities, need certainty and continuity in federal reimbursements so efforts underway to address the nation's transportation needs are maintained while Congress advances a fully-funded, six-year highway and transit bill. Six months is a reasonable timeframe to advance a long-term reauthorization package while addressing other legislative priorities. It is vitally important that the relevant Senate and House committees actually use this extension to make meaningful progress on SAFETEA-LU reauthorization, lest this six-month measure begin a series of extensions that unnecessarily delay needed investments and economic benefits.  It is also imperative that any extension maintain the Highway Trust Fund's budgetary ‘firewalls' that have been in place since 1998.  Allowing these critical protections to lapse on the eve of a multi-year reauthorization bill would not only be bad policy, but could also be interpreted as a damaging precedent.

With SAFETEA-LU reauthorization, the federal government must step up its responsibility to ensure that our infrastructure system is supporting national economic growth, personal mobility, and safety.  Infrastructure is about more than just getting from point A to point B-it is about creating good jobs, enhancing our international competitiveness, being a global leader, and improving American's quality of life and public safety.  Not only will a well-crafted bill help address mounting safety and maintenance needs around the country, it can guide new investments to ensure our transportation systems are optimized for more efficient use and expanded where capacity is needed.  If done right, highway and public transportation reauthorization can help address national energy and environmental objectives and, importantly, drive economic recovery by creating jobs.

While the economy is showing clear signs of recovery, unemployment across all economic sectors persists.  Earlier this month, the Labor Department reported that another 263,000 jobs were lost during the month of September, increasing the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent and increasing the total job losses to 7.2 million jobs since the start of the recession.  The job losses were widespread: 64,000 in construction, 51,000 in manufacturing, and 39,000 in retailing. For the construction industry, unemployment is now a staggering 17.1 percent.  In all, 1.5 million construction jobs have been lost since December 2007.

Projects funded by the economic recovery plan are putting people back to work building America but even if the recovery plan reaches the goal of creating 700,000 construction jobs there will still be nearly one million workers left behind.  A comprehensive highway and public transportation bill would go far in putting them back to work and ensuring economic competitiveness for generations. It would also provide a needed boost across other economic sectors.  Beyond construction, investment in transportation helps create jobs the engineering, natural resources, manufacturing and services sectors - these investments are a true multiplier. 

The Coalition strongly urges Congress to extend the current programs for six months and advance a robust reauthorization package as soon as possible.  SAFETEA-LU is a vitally important effort in terms of job creation, safety, energy use, and economic competitiveness and is an important opportunity to help turn around these challenging unemployment trends.

Sincerely, 

Americans for Transportation Mobility