Once again, I want to thank our MML members because you made a number of calls that helped get us a 109-1 vote on the passage of HB 4582 (Gonzales), which is the appropriations bill that will allow the transportation part of the federal stimulus program move forward in Michigan.
Today, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Stimulus Oversight took up the bill. Prior to the hearing, representatives from a number of public utilties (AT&T, Comcast, Consumers Energy, DTE, and others) were hard at work lobbying Senators for an amendment to the bill. They wanted to make sure that if there was a road project that required them to move their equipment/assets out of our right-of-ways, that we would reimburse them for that. Aside from the fact that with the need to move the stimulus bill as quickly as possible (and amendments only muddy the waters when trying to move bills quickly through the Legislature), this just makes bad policy. We have serious problems with our transportation system and we need serious actions to solve them. Taking transportation money to give to corporations who don't pay for a permit to use our right-of-ways in the first place is not a efficient use of Michigan's transportation taxes
Fortunately, all of the Senators on the subcommittee agreed with us and they did not even take up the amendment. They did report the bill with recommendation to the full Senate Appropriations committee by a unanimous vote. The full committee should vote on the bill tomorrow and send it to the Senate floor for action on Thursday. Things look good so far with that bill.
Before all of that happened, the Senate Transportation Appropriations committee unanimous voted out the FY 2009-10 Transportation Budget. They basically adopted the Governor's proposal, which is going to provide $344 million less in transporation funds for all of Michigan's road programs this year (MDOT, county road commissions, cities/villages, transit operations) - based on the decrease in gas tax and vehicle registration revenues. Again, this only reminds us that we have work to do when it comes to transportation funding.
As always, I'll keep you updated on how things proceed from here, both with the transportation stimulus and the overall transportation budget.
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