[Lott] Doing Our Job

The U.S. Senate is considering highway legislation that will improve public safety, make transportation easier and help create new jobs. Since the beginning of our republic, Congress has been charged with establishing and maintaining roads. This duty stands shoulder to shoulder with other charter federal responsibilities like national defense, currency, law enforcement and the courts. Roads are a basic part of what makes our country a country, and it’s Congress’ job to make sure America’s roads and bridges are good.

Right now our roads and bridges need attention. Of the $106 billion that transportation experts at the U.S. Department of Transportation say all government – state, local and federal – should devote to highways annually, we’re only providing about $33 billion federally. We’ve increased miles of the federal highway system by only one percent since 1988, well below projected needs. Our 50-year-old interstate highway system is aging fast. Thirty-two percent of America’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Twenty-nine percent of our nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Mississippi still has a network of dangerous two-lane roads. Some are actually a lane-and-a-half, or “country two-lanes”with no safety striping and no shoulders.

The new highway bill – formally named the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2004, or SAFETEA – is a six-year extension of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). TEA-21 was a critical piece of Mississippi’s economic progress during the last six years, providing $2.3 billion for the state’s roads. It helped create jobs, like those at the new Nissan plant. It brought much needed capacity to I-10, U.S. Highway 90, and U.S. Highway 49 in South Mississippi. It began the effort to construct a new interstate, I-69, through the Mississippi Delta. It helped construct a new high-rise bridge at Pascagoula, and significant improvements are being made in the Jackson area, thanks to TEA-21, including engineering and design work for an airport parkway in Rankin County. Through TEA-21 Mississippi has increased our federal highway formula funding. At my insistence, Mississippi now gets 90 cents of each gas tax dollar back from Washington to use for state and local transportation needs. I’m working to increase this to 95 cents under SAFETEA.

SAFETEA will continue TEA-21 projects and fund newer ones. Although individual projects haven’t been added to the bill yet, we know what transportation needs Mississippi has. For example, we need to widen I-55 in DeSoto County, one of the nation’s fastest growing counties. We need funding to improve U.S. Highway 49, a critical artery from Jackson to the Coast and a major hurricane evacuation route. We need to construct an interchange in Lauderdale County to serve a new industrial park critical for East Central Mississippi’s job development. We need a new interchange near the bustling Jackson-area communities of Madison and Ridgeland. There are many other needs, too.

Even faced with these pressing needs, some in Washington, including in my own party, think SAFETEA will cost too much. They’ve voted to increase spending in area after area, including entitlement programs which by no means are traditional federal duties like roads are. Ironically, they’ve chosen to draw a line on spending by opposing SAFETEA. That’s backwards logic. Some have sided with environmental lobbyists who think that people will stop driving if we stop building roads. That defies logic.

The federal government has been charged with providing for road building and maintenance since our earliest days. When America neglects this basic duty we put our lives, our jobs and our future at risk. SAFETEA certainly isn’t perfect legislation, but it’s the next step in a constant and never-ending evolution of road construction and maintenance that is dictated by growing needs. Congress must ignore the politics of the moment and take this next step. Making roads – and making them better – is our job. 2/12/04
Senator Lott welcomes any questions or comments about this column. Write to: U.S. Senator Trent Lott, 487 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510 (Attn: Press Office)