Paving Contractors Push Congress for Long-Term Highway Bill
A delegation of Washington State contractors travelled to Washington DC last week to participate in a national “fly-in” to push Congress to among other things pass long-term reauthorization of the federal highway bill.
Mike and Tim Lee and George Peabody of Lakeside Industries joined Pamp Maiers of Central Washington Asphalt Inc. and Tom Gaetz of Washington Asphalt Pavement Association on Capitol Hill for the event cosponsored by AGC of America May 25-26.
The contractors talked to members of the Washington State congressional delegation about the importance of transportation infrastructure investment to the nation’s economy creating jobs while building the future.
SAFETEA-LU (the highway bill) expired on September 30 2009 and the highway and transit programs have been operating on short term extensions ever since. Little progress has been made in developing multi-year legislation to reauthorize critical highway bridge transit and aviation construction programs. Even less progress has been made on how to fund highway and transit infrastructure improvements. With the Highway Trust Fund’s balance at zero new revenue will be needed to provide the investment necessary to address current and future demands. The federal aviation programs also remain in limbo with new authorization years overdue.
In order to emphasize these concerns during the fly-in event AGC of America and its coalition partners placed a full-page ad in Capitol Hill’s Roll Call newspaper.
To see a copy of the advertisement click here.