State Sen. Robert Adley

While pushing legislation to commit revenues to transportation and education, State Sen. Robert Adley made an impassioned plea to his colleagues to address the issue of Louisiana's aging infrastructure and its effect on economic development.

Adley, who is chairman of the Senate Transportation, Highways and Public Works committee, is the author of SB 463, a bill to create the Better Highways and Higher Education Fund. Money for the fund, which would be evenly split between higher education and transportation, would come from sales tax revenues paid by Louisiana consumers to out-of-state vendors through internet and catalogue sales. That tax is not collected now but could be if federal enabling legislation is passed.

Adley's bill easily passed the transportation committee but ran into resistance from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jim Fanin, who noted the legislation did nothing for health care. Adley agreed to delay action on the bill, but he gave a dire warning to his fellow Senators.

"The infrastructure in this state is what's going to build income for us in the future," said Adley, "You cannot grow, and we cannot create, income without infrastructure, and ours is falling apart."

A modern transportation infrastructure is vital to economic development. Federal studies show that every $1 billion invested in transportation yields about 31,000 jobs, and every dollar invested yields about $6.20 in taxes.

The Louisiana section of the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted an extensive study of Louisiana's infrastructure in 2012 and published the Report Card for Louisiana's Infrastructure. That report gave Louisiana's roads a "D" and its bridges a "D+."

On SB 463, half of the money from the Better Highways and Higher Education Fund would go to the Transportation Trust Fund "to be expended solely and exclusively for the costs of construction and/or maintenance in Highway Priority Program projects," the bill says. Half of the money in the fund would be split among all public postsecondary institutions.

The bill to give states federal transportation dollars for the next six years heads to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on May 15.

U.S. Capitol Dome

The Senate committee released the text for the Moving Ahead for Progress for the 21st Century (MAP-21) Reauthorization Act (S. 2322), a long-term bipartisan legislation to fund and improve the nation's federal-aid highway programs for six years at current funding plus inflation. The bill will be marked up in the EPW Committee on May 15th at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Click here to see the text of the bill. Click here to see a summary of the bill.

The new bill would maintain current levels of funding for the next six years, an approach that U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said was unacceptable.

"We cannot meet the needs of a growing country and a growing economy by simply maintaining our current level of effort," Foxx said in a White House briefing. "We must do more."  

Meanwhile, the Highway Trust Fund is on track to run out of money long before September 30, when the current transportation bill expires and a new bill would go into effect. Foxx already has begun to prepare states for a possible Highway Trust Fund insolvency, which could delay reimbursements to states for funds already committed.

Committee chairwoman Sen. Senator Boxer, D-CA, said: "This job-creating legislation provides the long-term funding certainty that states, cities, and businesses need while maintaining and improving the efficiency of the successful TIFIA program and establishing a formula-based freight program to improve the movement of goods on our surface transportation system."

Ranking member Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, said: "It's time to restore trust in the Highway Trust Fund and to build and fix our nation's roads and bridges so people can carry out their daily routines. We'll remain focused on a long-term reauthorization bill that invests in rural areas, expands flexibility for state and local governments, and improves safety. And it's incredibly important that we get projects streamlined and cut long bureaucratic waits."