AGC of St. Louis Prepares for Road/Transportation Funding Battle

The Associated General Contractors (AGC) of St. Louis announced a new weapon in its battle for adequate funds to maintain
Missouri's roads, bridges, and rails: affiliation with ARTBA - the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

ARTBA "has a rifle-like focus on transportation issues," Len Toenjes said in announcing the affiliation. Toenjes is president of the AGC of St. Louis.
Noting that the national AGC already has lobbyists in Washington, D.C., Toenjes said that affiliation with ARTBA "will multiply our voice on
transportation policy."

The affiliation couldn't come at a more important time. On Friday, the Bush administration admitted that the highway funding system is in crisis.
Reversing policy, the Administration now supports a House plan to restore $8 billion to the highway trust fund, money that Congress had taken out of the
fund 10 years ago to balance the budget. The House overwhelmingly approved the plan in July by a vote of 387-37, but it has been held up in the Senate
by, in part, a veto threat from the President.

T. Peter Raune, president and CEO of ARTBA, said the administration reversed itself when it saw the bills coming in from the states and realized it did
not have the money to pay them. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced on Friday that the highway trust fund would run out of money by
the end of this month unless Congress puts more money into it.

Raune said that everyone knew this day was coming; they just didn't expect it to come so soon. The culprit, he said, is higher gas prices, which
prompted car owners to drive less and purchase less gasoline. Since the highway trust fund is funded by a federal gasoline tax, the cutback in
driving has meant less money going into the fund that people had expected."Never have we seen a cutback of this magnitude," he said.

The $8 billion Congress is offering is only a band-aid, Raune said. "Withouta [gasoline] tax hike, we'll be right back in the same boat in 2009," he
said.

Even a gas-tax hike is only a medium-term solution, he added. If people continue to buy more fuel-efficient cars, electric cars, and alternative
fueled cars, and curtail driving, "eventually we'll have to go to a fee forevery mile a vehicle travels," he said.

Toenjes said the funding crisis is even greater in Missouri, because of the way Missouri paid for its recent road construction. Missouri borrowed money
to pay for it current road program and next year the bond payments on thatdebt come due. That, he said, will mean 50 percent less state money for road
and bridge repair and maintenance.

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