The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) commends and supports the members of Congress who have written to the president and the leadership of the House and Senate Budget Committees calling for retention of the current budget rules that apply to transportation programs.
The members of Congress responded to proposed changes contained in the president’s FY 2010 budget outline. If enacted, these changes would significantly hamper the ability of states to deliver capital programs by undermining the stability of funding to states and reducing the effectiveness of long-term planning.
The members cited several concerns:
• The loss of transparency that would occur from merging trust-funded and non-trust-funded programs, and
• Impacts to the longstanding commitment that user fees deposited into the Aviation and Highway Trust Funds are, in fact, used for their intended purposes—to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.
John Horsley, AASHTO’s Executive Director, expressed his appreciation to the members saying, “The president has expressed strong support for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and this proposed change would be a step backward in that effort.”
