Engineering Inc. - May/June 2007 - 12

ACEC President Dave Raymond and Chairman-elect Orrin ‘Mac’ MacMurray discuss infrastructure issues with Congressman James Oberstar. However, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee staff will meet with GAO officials before the bill is signed into law to discuss how the study can be conducted in a timely and effective manner. A water infrastructure trust fund has not been established up to this point, because no adequate source of revenue has been identified. It is my hope that GAO, an independent third party, will analyze various options and recommend viable funding sources that will adequately meet the nation’s water infrastructure needs. Raymond: Final passage of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) is another key priority for the engineering industry. Do you anticipate completing work on WRDA this year, and what do you see as the major challenges to overcome in getting it done? Oberstar: At the beginning of the 110th Congress, I met with Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate environment and public Works Committee, to discuss issues related to the overlapping jurisdiction of our respective committees. Sen. Boxer and I agreed to move WRDA reauthorization legislation through both cham12 ENGINEERING INC. MAY / JUNE 2007 bers as quickly as possible and to resolve any differences in an expeditious, cooperative manner. Because WRDA proposals considered by the House and Senate in the 109th Congress were very similar, I anticipate that a final version of the bill will emerge from the House-Senate conference committee and will be signed into law later this year. MacMurray: ACEC members were heavily engaged last year and earlier this year in protecting the funding levels for highways and transit authorized under SAFETEA-LU for 2007, and we’d like to once again offer our thanks for your leadership in winning this important fight. As you know, the challenge remains, as the Highway Trust Fund is projected to run a deficit in 2009. What will be the committee’s approach to solving this short-term funding crisis? Oberstar: The outgoing leadership of the 109th Congress left us with a continuing resolution that funded government programs at minimal levels until midFebruary. This difficult situation led many to suggest freezing all domestic spending—including highway and transit invest- ment––at the 2006 level. Compared to SAFeTeA-lU, a full-year continuing resolution that freezes funding at F.Y. 2006 levels would have cut $4 billion from SAFeTeA-lU infrastructure investment programs in F.Y. 2007. If a full-year continuing resolution had been adopted below the authorized investment levels for 2007, it would have been the first time in the last decade that the highway and transit funding guarantees were not honored. Working with ACeC and your partners in the transportation construction industry, we were able to ensure that the final appropriations bill for F.Y. 2007 provided full funding for SAFeTeA–lU’s investment levels. While I am very pleased the full 2007 highway and transit investment levels were secured, I am mindful of the larger challenges facing the Highway Trust Fund. Revenue estimates indicate that the Highway Trust Fund’s Highway Account will have a negative balance by the end of 2009, the last year of SAFeTeA-lU. While these are projections, which can be unreliable, clearly there are significant challenges regarding future highway and transit investment levels.

Engineering Inc. - May/June 2007

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