"The current (transportation) authorization legislation, SAFETEA-LU, will expire on September 30, 2009. The new bill will be called MAP-21, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century.
This legislation will impact all Americans because it sets the policy and provides the funding for transportation nationwide, and this Committee will be taking the lead to authorize this new legislation.
Congress passed and the President recently signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1), which provided a total of $48 billion for transportation improvements. Of that $48 billion about $27.5 billion was included for the highway program.
The funding provided in H.R. 1 was a good start, but it is not enough.
The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, which released a congressionally mandated report in January of 2008, called for investments of at least $225 billion annually over the next 50 years at all levels of government.
The more recent, February 2009, report of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission estimates that we need to invest at least $200 million per year at all levels of government to maintain and improve our highways and transit systems."
From National League of Cities testimony before committee:
Novak testified that NLC policy supports an increase in the gas tax with indexing for inflation, pointing out that the Denver region recently raised the sales tax to fund transportation programs and the state of Colorado raised car registration fees that will generate an additional $250 million annually, far short of projected needs.
Thanks to U.S.Senator Barbara Boxer
