In a letter to Congress, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has asked for $50 billion in emergency assistance to be given directly to state departments of transportation (DOTs).
The request comes as Congress and the White House work on a fourth aid package to help businesses affected by stay-at-home and social distancing orders across the country as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. State DOTs, like many companies, are facing revenue shortages.
“State DOTs are forecasting a significant reduction in state transportation revenues that will challenge their ability to maintain and operate our transportation system in a way that can support the COVID-19 response,” Jim Tymon, AASHTO’s executive director, said. “Some state DOTs are already furloughing workers due to funding shortfalls and more will be faced with the same difficult decision about projects and people, unless Congress takes action.”
AASHTO is asking Congress to provide money to the state DOTs as it did to commercial airlines, transportation agencies and others in previous stimulus packages. On March 27, President Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package that provided money to small businesses, individuals and large corporations.
AASHTO asked Congress to immediately approve a “Phase 4” recovery package that would provide “backstop” funding to state DOTs.
Preliminary projections show that state DOTs will see a 30 percent decline in their revenues, on average, for the next year and a half. AASHTO’s proposal calls for $16.7 billion in funding (30 percent of state revenue losses prorated over six months) to be distributed to state DOTs in 2020 and $33.3 billion (30 percent revenue losses for a whole year) in 2021.
Additionally, AASHTO is asking Congress to double federal surface transportation authorization in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) funding, and authorizing FAST Act for another six years.
“A failure to reauthorize the FAST Act before it expires in September will lead to short-term extensions, funding uncertainty, and the possibility of transportation project delays or stoppages, which will hurt the economy in the short-term and limit our ability to drive economic recovery once this crisis is over,” Tymon said.