National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act

Floor Speech

NATIONAL HIGHWAY BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION AND INSPECTION ACT -- (Senate - September 26, 2008)

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to explain why there are objections to bringing up H.R. 3999, the National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act of 2008. As has been mentioned by several of my colleagues on the floor today, the Highway Bridge Program in its current form needs to be reformed to make it more useable for States. Unfortunately, H.R. 3999 hinders, rather than strengthens, States' abilities to address their greatest bridge priorities. It would force States to follow a risk-based system developed in Washington to prioritize the replacement or rehabilitation of bridges. There is great concern that this one-size-fits-all approach would not allow for important local factors, such as seismic retrofit. This legislation also forces States to spend scarce resources on new procedures that will provide little or no new information to State bridge engineers.

SAFETEA-LU will expire on September 30, 2009. Any major policy changes at this point in the process will distract from the overall goal of completing a comprehensive bill on time. For that reason, a policy change of this magnitude should be handled in the context of reauthorization. Furthermore, it is counterproductive to attempt to fix our crumbling infrastructure through piecemeal efforts. Comprehensive reform is necessary and should be addressed in a holistic approach in the reauthorization bill the Environment and Public Works Committee will work on in the coming months.

There has been a lot of press about the poor condition of the nation's bridges in the wake of the Minnesota tragedy. Our bridges are certainly in need of additional investment, but the roads on the National Highway System, NHS, are actually in greater need. According to the Federal Highway Administration, FHWA, the Nation's bridges receive an average of 15 percent less funding from all levels of government than the maximum amount that could be economically invested. In contrast, the roads on the NHS receive 78 percent less funding than the maximum economic level.

This is not to say that there are not enormous bridge needs. These are simply 20 year averages, and much more could be economically invested in the short term. According to the same study by the FHWA, $62 billion could be invested immediately in a cost-beneficial basis. It is critical, however, to view investment in the Nation's highways and bridges in a comprehensive fashion.

The authors of H.R. 3999 tout one of the benefits of the bill is that it prohibit transfers from the current bridge program to other highway programs. I would like to take a few minutes to explain that while that sounds good, it will not accomplish what the authors of the bill want. Many States rely on the flexibility allowed under the Federal highway program to transfer money in between core highway programs as an important cash and program management tool. This flexibility in the bridge program is needed by States as bridges are enormous, ``lumpy'' investments and it often becomes necessary for States to wait a few years between major bridge replacements. If they did not do so, bridges would consume too much of their highway resources to address nonbridge needs. This bill would prohibit all transfers from the bridge program on the incorrect assumption that all transfers are bad.

Many States find the bridge program requirements too bureaucratic and prefer to replace or rehabilitate structurally deficient bridges using more flexible programs. These States transfer money out of the bridge program and then obligate those same dollars to structurally deficient bridges. Also, when bridges are being replaced or rehabilitated as a part of a larger project, States frequently transfer money into a single category of funding that can be used on the entire project. Because of the narrow eligibility of Highway Bridge Program funds, the flexibility to transfer funds is oftentimes necessary and does not necessarily detract from the goals of the Highway Bridge Program.

H.R. 3999 incorrectly assumes that all bridge construction and reconstruction is done through the bridge program. In fact, only about 55 percent of obligations on bridges are through the Highway Bridge Program. The remaining obligations of funds on bridges, about $2.4 billion, are done using other categories of funding. By prohibiting transfers, H.R. 3999 would effectively punish States that are spending more on bridges than is provided in bridge funding, by denying them an important cash and program management tool.

In addition, H.R. 3999 requires States to follow a risk-based system developed in Washington to prioritize the replacement or rehabilitation of bridges. Many fear that this will produce a ``worst first'' approach to replacing and rehabilitating our bridges an approach that is widely criticized among economists as it costs far more money than a targeted approach. In many aspects of government this is a prudent method to make decisions, but the approach set forth in this bill lacks the cumulative factor analysis required to make the most cost-beneficial and safety-driven bridge investment decisions. Under H.R. 3999's risk-based system, a lower rated bridge that is rarely used and poses no public safety threat could be prioritized ahead of a slightly higher rated bridge with more traffic, greater relative importance to the rest of the system, and overall more need for investment. This bill would create yet another level of bureaucracy to a bridge program over-burdened with red tape, as State risk-management plans will have to be approved by the Department of Transportation.

The requirements for the risk management system set forth in H.R. 3999 are vague and unspecific. However, there is a wide concern among State departments of transportation that they will be interpreted by FHWA to force one-size-fits-all Federal standards that ignore local considerations and variations in risk factors across the country, such as seismic retrofit.

States are already using a highly effective bridge management system to address risk when making State-wide bridge investment decisions; this bill will disrupt these efforts.

In closing I will reiterate that I fully agree that the current Highway Bridge Program needs work, but so does the entire Federal Highway Program and I believe we need a comprehensive solution. I look forward to working with my colleagues to that end.

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