David Thomas: “I come to the Senate to urge we move forward with our highway bill. We have worked on this for a very long time. I was…”

“I come to the Senate to urge we move forward with our highway bill. We have worked on this for a very long time. I was on the committee 6 years ago when we passed the original bill. We have not passed it the last couple of years but have simply extended it. I hope we can move forward. There are a number of issues before the Senate that have immediate impact. One of them is this highway bill, as well as the Energy bill. There are other conversations going on, disputes about a number of issues, but overall we are here to do some work. This is something that is most important. Six extensions is six too many. We need a highway bill. One of the problems is all of our highway departments, as they work on highways, use contractors. Therefore, they need to make contracts ahead of time. They have to know what funds are available. So it is even more important for this particular activity to know what the funding is going to be over time than it is in any other agency of the Government. Our State DOTs cannot make long-term plans unless they have some idea of what the funding is going to be. So projects are delayed in Wyoming, as I am sure they are in other States. One of our problems, of course, is we have a short construction season. So it is particularly important we be able to plan ahead and know when the construction is going to happen. Federal funds account for nearly 70 percent of Wyoming's Department of Transportation highway construction budget.…”