Smith Hopes to Garner Federal Funds for Granite State Roads
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13–A week after he introduced legislation that would make up for millions in cutbacks in federal transportation funds for New Hampshire for the upcoming fiscal year, Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) pledged to rewrite transportation laws next year to bring 40 percent more in federal funds to the Granite State for projects such as the widening of Interstate 93.
The bill Smith introduced last Thursday would restore more than $20 million that President Bush’s budget proposes to cut from New Hampshire’s highway funds next year.
“There is a lot of support for this,” Smith said on Wednesday. “I sent a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter out, and it already has up to 25 co-sponsors in the Senate on both sides of the aisle. I think the law is very clear that we should stay at authorized funding levels.”
Carol Murray, the commissioner of New Hampshire’s Department of Transportation, who on Tuesday told state lawmakers that highway spending was in jeopardy, said on Wednesday that she fully supports Smith’s bill. She warned the New Hampshire House’s Public Works and Highway Committee of looming cuts, she said, because she wants the legislature to be frugal when drafting a new 10-year plan in case Smith’s bill fails.
“I’m asking my counterparts in other states to step forward and support Senator Smith in what he is trying to do,” Murray said. “But there is no way one senator can do it all. The more the other state DOTs talk to their congressional delegations, the better the chances are that the senator’s bill is successful.”
Smith is the senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which originates highway and bridge legislation. His bill proposes using funds from the Highway Trust Fund, which has $20 billion in untapped funds, to make up for spending shortfalls in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), the primary surface transportation law.
Smith’s legislation would increase total federal highway funds to the levels authorized in TEA-21, which Bush’s budget would cut by 27 percent, or by $8.6 billion. Under Smith’s bill, co-sponsored by members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, $20 million of the amount that Bush proposed to cut from New Hampshire’s share of highway money would be restored, so that the state would receive close to $140 million, or approximately what it received this year, according to Smith’s spokeswoman.
“Quite frankly, to a small state like New Hampshire, those cuts are a huge amount of money,” Murray said. “If in fact the administration’s budget goes through, the projects we have planned now for the 10-year plan [such as expanding I-93, building an access road to the Manchester Airport and improving the Route 101 Corridor from Bedford to Wilton] would still happen, and stay in the order they’re in, but the dates would be adjusted.”
If reelected, Smith would play a key part next year in reauthorizing TEA-21 for the first time in six years. Smith said he would seek to increase Granite State transportation funds by $200 million to $1 billion.
At the top of Smith’s list of priorities for that extra money is the expansion of I-93 from Manchester to Salem, about which he has met with state transportation leaders a half-dozen times, he said.
David “Jeff” Brillhart, the manager for the initiative to add extra lanes to the congested I-93, said his group is now sorting through an environmental impact statement for the pending project. “It’s two inches thick,” he said. “Once we know it’s up to par we’ll set dates for the next meeting.” The next set of meetings will hammer out the project’s final design before construction begins in March 2004.
“I want to put my personal reputation on line for putting I-93 on time,” Smith said. “It is a very important project for New Hampshire. A lot of lives are lost on 93.”
Smith has selected the I-93 project as a pilot for a streamlined approach to collaboration among all officials and agencies involved.
“All of the stakeholders from all kinds of federal and state agencies are all there around the table and working in a concurrent manner,” he said. “We have gotten great feedback, and other areas such as San Diego are interested in modeling themselves after it.”
Smith met with transportation industry leaders last week to discuss highway priorities and TEA-21 reauthorization and will continue to seek their views when working on legislation.
Smith also said he will invite people from New Hampshire who build, repair and use the roads to testify.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
