* A reluctance to spend billions to create thousands of jobs
* Major crossing near Speaker Boehner’s Ohio district in
limbo
* Little progress seen on bill before Nov. 6 election
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) – Nearly every day, rush-hour
traffic backs up for miles on both ends of the overburdened
Brent Spence Bridge, which spans the Ohio River and links
Cincinnati with its suburbs in Kentucky.
The bridge, one of the busiest in the U.S. interstate
system, has been dubbed “functionally obsolete” by the federal
government because its narrow four lanes on each level –
originally designed as three lanes – create massive bottlenecks
for traffic.
For commuters and businesses desperate for an improved
crossing, the good news is that they have a powerful friend in
Congress: U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican whose
district includes Cincinnati suburbs.
But a $2.4 billion plan to replace the Interstate 71/75
bridge has gotten little help from Boehner’s House of
Representatives, which abandoned efforts to pass long-term
federal highway funding in favor of two 90-day extensions, the
second of which passed last week.
In the process, the highway bill has become a symbol of
Boehner’s frustrations in dealing with budget-conscious
Republicans allied with the Tea Party movement.
It also is part of a broader debate over whether the U.S.
government – at a time when the federal debt tops $15 trillion –
should spend billions of dollars on much-needed projects that
would create thousands of jobs.
That debate is behind much of the gridlock in Congress since
Boehner became speaker of the 435-member House in 2011, leading
a 242-member Republican majority that includes dozens of Tea
Party-backed conservatives who say this is not the time to spend
big on transportation projects.
The latest 90-day extension, “like the others before it,
authorizes spending levels that are billions of dollars beyond
the revenue in the Highway Trust Fund,” said Representative
Justin Amash, a Republican from western Michigan who voted
against the extension last week. “It’s more reckless and
irresponsible deficit spending.”
The 90-day measures would keep concrete pouring until the
end of September into U.S. road, bridge and transit projects now
under construction. But they do not provide the long-term
funding that analysts say is needed for many projects –
including replacement of the Brent Spence – to make it beyond
the planning stage.
Last week, Boehner told reporters that if it were his
choice, a long-term transportation bill would have been enacted
weeks ago. But “the House decided it didn’t want to vote for
it,” Boehner said, adding, “So you have to go to Plan B.”
IMPACT ON JOBS
As a result, hundreds of thousands of construction jobs
across the nation could go unfilled and road projects are likely
to be delayed at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate remains
at about 8.2 percent, the American Association of State Highway
and Transportation Officials noted.
“It’s a torturous effect on these projects, not having a
long-term bill,” said Mark Policinski, chief executive of the
Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana Regional Council of Governments.
“Uncertainty cripples everybody’s ability to plan and to execute
projects.”
Policinski said that for each one-month delay of the Brent
Spence project, its total costs inflate by $8 million, or $96
million a year. That does not count the economic ripple effect
of traffic delays on the clogged thoroughfare.
The 48-year-old bridge, named after a former Democratic
congressman from Kentucky, is a lynchpin on the I-75 corridor
linking Midwest automotive suppliers to newer foreign-owned car
plants in the South. It carries more than $400 billion worth of
freight annually.
Last November, Democratic President Barack Obama turned the
bridge into a poster child for overwhelmed or crumbling U.S.
roadways, using it as a backdrop to tout an infrastructure
investment plan that was largely ignored by Congress.
Such interstate bridges have received heightened attention
since 2007, when bridges over the Mississippi River collapsed in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Many states have projects waiting for long-term funding.
Nevada has a $1.8 billion redesign of Interstate 15 through
the core of Las Vegas, dubbed “Project Neon” for the casino
lights that surround the route. North Carolina has $1.2 billion
worth of bridges and highways slated for reconstruction that
will be put on ice if funding remains uncertain.
“If we continue to have the short-term resolutions, we would
look at starting to have to delay projects and that would result
in job losses,” said Nicole Meister, a spokeswoman for the North
Carolina Department of Transportation in Raleigh.
Delaying these projects would prevent about 41,000 jobs from
being filled, she said.
SPILL-OVER EFFECTS
With 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry,
such jobs and the spill-over effects – demand for steel,
concrete and construction machinery – would boost the U.S.
economy as it struggles through energy-cost headwinds and
lackluster job growth, analysts said.
But “a contractor is not going to make that commitment to
buy a $750,000 piece of equipment if they don’t know whether
they’ll have enough work to keep it busy,” said Brian Deery,
senior director of highway and transportation at the Associated
General Contractors of America.
Boehner had wanted a long-term, five-year transportation
construction bill, but the measure once touted as his signature
jobs plan failed to get enough votes from either party.
Conservative Republicans revolted over its $260 billion
price tag. Some Democrats and moderate Republicans from suburban
districts balked at part of the plan that would end dedicated
funding for mass transit projects.
Democrats also objected to linking contentious oil drilling
projects to transportation construction.
The second short-term extension, backed by most Republicans
and 69 of the 190 Democrats in the House, is largely devoid of
these provisions. But Boehner did create a new obstacle by
including in the bill approval of the Canada-to-U.S. Keystone XL
oil pipeline that Obama has opposed.
Political analysts discount the notion that Republicans
might want to sabotage job-creating projects to deny Obama any
political credit in an election year. Republicans want credit
for creating jobs, too, and will have to answer to frustrated
contracting firms and other business groups.
“My take is that this is a symbol of the dysfunction that
grips Congress: Even things they essentially agree on can’t get
passed,” said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at
Potomac Research Group in Washington.
House Republicans this week are expected to start
negotiating a compromise with Senate Democrats.
The Senate last month rejected putting the Keystone plan in
its two-year, $109 billion transportation bill and Obama has
threatened a veto if Keystone makes it into a final bill.
Prospects for a House-Senate deal on longer-term
transportation funding in the coming months seem bleak, as
Senate Democrats are vowing to exclude Keystone – a provision
meant to entice House Republican votes – from the measure
.
“There will not be a bill before the election,” U.S.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood predicted last week at an
event sponsored by Politico.
“America’s one big pothole right now,” added LaHood, a
former Republican congressman from Illinois. “If the
transportation bill passes, people go to work.”
