8/5/2014

Dear Colleague:

As you will recall, on July 1, I notified you of the precarious state of the Highway Trust Fund and the Department's plan for managing the resources available to transit agencies through the Mass Transit Account if the shortfall continued into the fall.

As a result of the short-term fix for the Highway Trust Fund that Congress passed on July 31, I am writing to let you know that we will not need to implement these cash management procedures at this time.

While I am pleased that Congress took action to avoid the immediate insolvency of the Highway Account this summer, I am disappointed that they merely kicked the can down the road again. This is the tenth surface transportation extension-on top of eighteen short term budget measures--in the last 6 years. There is still no long-tem1 certainty. Worse still, this latest band-aid expires right as the next construction season begins, setting up another crisis next spring. So in the coming months, the Department will again be required to prepare cash management procedures in anticipation of repeating the same Highway Trust Fund insolvency crisis.

Americans deserve a multi-year transportation bill that provides the certainty that businesses and communities deserve, creates jobs, and makes necessary policy updates to lay the foundation for lasting economic growth. As the Senate demonstrated with its bipartisan vote on July 29, there is no reason Congress cannot act on a long-term solution this year. Our transportation infrastructure is too essential to suffer continued neglect, and I hope that Congress uses this opportunity productively. I urge you to stand with me in calling on Congress to commit itself to a sound, bipartisan, and long-term solution that will ensure the stability of the surface transportation system of our Nation for the next several years.

Sincerely,

Anthony R. Foxx