Washington, DC - Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD), Chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, reached out to all 535 Members of Congress to urge immediate action on a transportation bill to prevent the imminent loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The current surface transportation bill expires on September 30, and unless Congress passes a new bill, 630,000 private sector jobs in highways and transit will be lost in 2012. The Senate is working on a bipartisan proposal that will support transportation programs at current funding levels.

The state-by-state job numbers can be accessed here, and the text of the letter is below.


Congress Will Be Cutting 630,000 Jobs Unless it Passes a Strong Transportation Bill

July 14, 2011

Dear Colleague,

We are at a crisis moment today when it comes to our nation's transportation system, and Congress must act before September 30, or hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs.

The good news is that the Senate is working on a bipartisan transportation proposal that will support current funding levels.

A great country must keep up investment in infrastructure. According to a report by the Council of Economic Advisors, the U.S. currently spends 2 percent of GDP on infrastructure, a 50 percent decline from 1960. Meanwhile, China is spending close to 9 percent of its GDP on infrastructure. The underinvestment in infrastructure has led to a crumbling transportation system that the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a "D" on their 2009 "Report Card for America's Infrastructure." This is not the grade a world leader with an infrastructure system for the 21st Century would receive.

Please support a bill which maintains funding at the current levels, includes significant reforms to make the nation's transportation programs more streamlined and efficient, and provides robust assistance for transportation projects under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program to leverage state, local and private-sector funding.

Many groups support our current spending levels approach, ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the AFL-CIO.

Attached are state-by-state lists of the number of jobs that will be lost as a result of funding cuts in highways and public transportation if we do not act by September 30.

Sincerely,

 

Barbara Boxer                                                        Tim Johnson
Chairman                                                                 Chairman
Committee on Environment and Public Works         Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs