Newsletter: Commonsense Solutions for Our Nation's Infrastructure

Statement

Did you know that the average age of America's bridges is 42 years? Or that 66,749 of our bridges are structurally deficient? Did you know that our poor road conditions are costing motorists $109.3 billion in repair costs annually? That is $519 per driver. It is time Congress passes a long-term solution to fix our deteriorating roads and bridges and to reinvest in America's infrastructure.

On October 22nd, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a mark-up on a long-term surface transportation reauthorization. While this is a promising first step, I remain concerned as to how we will be able to find the funds to pay for it. Because of these concerns and the need to find long-term solutions for our nation's infrastructure, I introduced the "Bridge to Sustainable Infrastructure Act" which would provide an avenue to extend the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. Since people are driving further on less fuel our current user-fee systems have been losing their effectiveness. We need to find new ways to be able to invest in our infrastructure, and I believe this commonsense, bipartisan proposal is one way forward.

The Senate has already passed a transportation bill; however, the method of paying for it is much less reliable. The six year bill only has three years of funding and it would raise $16 billion by unilaterally slashing the long-standing Federal Reserve dividend rate paid to banks from 6% to 1.5%. Besides having no connection to highway funding, this arbitrary rate cut was never considered by the Banking Committee and will ultimately just pass on the cost to banking consumers. We need a solution that uses money that is directly and solely allocated for our infrastructure; the American people deserve more than gimmicks when it comes to their roads and hard-earned money.

As a former business owner, I understand the need for long-term certainty and predictability for our cities and states, as well as our road builders and users. I also understand the significance of having a safe and reliable transportation infrastructure. Much of our economy is dependent upon having access to our roads, bridges and railways. We need to stop letting politics get in the way of good policy, and start getting back to doing what is best for the American people. We may have difficult decisions facing us in Washington, but we need to get back to doing what's right.

The current transportation authorization expires on October 29th, 2015 and I am hopeful we will be able to pass a long-term reauthorization using commonsense user-pays proposals such as mine. Each Tuesday until then I will be posting on Facebook a different reason why we need a long-term solution using #TransportationTuesday. Be sure to follow me to learn more reasons why.

If you need any additional information, please visit my website at renacci.house.gov or call my Washington office: (202) 225-3876, Wadsworth office: (330) 334-0040, or Parma office: (440) 882-6779. I also encourage you to subscribe to my Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages to get updates on my work in Washington and the 16th District.

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