Hot Mix Asphalt Technology - March/April 2008 - (Page 51)

LEGISLATIVE REPORT Getting Lawmakers’ Attention: It’s Your Job government, on average, has provided roughly 44 percent of the funding for capital construction in the highway market The debate market. in Washington is whether the federal government should reduce its investment in this market. Once Congress and the President make a decision, the HMA industry must live with it for the next six years. your job to stay informed through NAPA’s ActionNews and legislative action center. It’s your job that is literally at risk by the decisions Congress makes regarding the future of the Federal-aid Highway Program. And it’s your job to get involved in grassroots. The Roadmap to Reauthorization is literally that – a roadmap or guide to grassroots action. The Roadmap provides a brief history of the Federal-aid Highway Program and describes in greater detail the HMA industry’s role and stake in the program. After a brief description of the legislative process, the document spells out specific ways companies and their employees can make their presence known in a coordinated way and with a unified voice. The Roadmap to Reauthorization even lists the top 10 ideas for companies to establish a grassroots action plan. The good news is that many of these ideas will not cost your company money. However, without a well thought-out, wellorganized grassroots action plan, federal transportation investments will shrink, which will have a negative effect on every company’s bottom-line. HMAT By Jay Hansen NAPA Vice President – Government Affairs Gas tax no longer enough The transportation construction industry has largely relied on an increase of motor fuel consumption to provide a steady stream of increased funding to the Federal-aid Highway Program. However, the last increase of the federal excise gas tax was in 1993, and construction costs have far outpaced the ability of a stagnant user fee to keep up. The funding model is broken, as evidenced by the near-insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund. The transportation construction industry can no longer assume that revenues coming into the Highway Trust Fund will increase. Finally, in today’s political environment, lawmakers are inundated with information and requests via telephone, e-mail, paper mail, and the Internet. The economy, homeland security, health care, and other issues simply overwhelm the congressional bureaucracy. The issue of highway funding fails to register on the political radar screen when so many other issues dominate the congressional agenda. How, then, can the HMA industry get its issues front and center with lawmakers? I would say to HMA producers, as well as their employees and suppliers, “That’s your job.” It’s O ne year ago NAPA’s Legislative Committee formed the Highway Bill Task Force to draft recommendations for the reauthorization of the next transportation bill. The first document published by the task force was Roadmap to Reauthorization: Your Guide to Influencing the Next Highway Bill. The publication is being mailed to NAPA members along with this edition of HMAT. Early in its deliberative process, the Highway Bill Task Force, led by its chairman, Christian Zimmermann of Pike Industries, New Hampshire, identified a critical need to educate the industry on the huge stakes in the HMA market when Congress enacts legislation in late 2009 to reauthorize the Federalaid Highway Program into the next decade. The task force is concerned that a combination of a distracted Congress and an indifferent industry could lead to poor transportation investment decisions by the federal government. Consider the following. About 65 percent of the HMA market is in highways and roads. The federal Make plans today to take your concerns to your elected representatives in Washington, D.C., at the Transportation Construction Coalition Fly-In, May 20-21. For more information about the Fly-In or NAPA’s legislative activities, contact Jay Hansen, at jhansen@hotmix.org, or go to http://legislative.hotmix. org. Hot Mix Asphalt Technology – MARCH/APRIL 2008 • 51 http://legislative.hotmix.org http://legislative.hotmix.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Hot Mix Asphalt Technology - March/April 2008

Hot Mix Asphalt Technology - March/April 2008 Contents Chairman’s Commentary Industry News Top-notch Teams Overcome Obstacles to Build the Nation’s Finest Roads Ecological Award Winners: Environmentally Sound, Neighbor Friendly Safety Award Winners: Rewards, Reminders and Technology Roadway Safety Program Trains Workers Preventing Back-overs Is Serious Business Driving Through Work Zones: Be Careful! San Diego Uses Porous Asphalt Lots for Stormwater Management Legislative Messages Tools for the Trade Calendar of Events Index of Advertisers Advertiser.com NAPA Roadmap to CONEXPO-CON/AGG

Hot Mix Asphalt Technology - March/April 2008

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