By CHARLES OWENS
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd is urging the Obama administration to move forward on a new long-term transportation bill that could include funding for several key highway projects across southern West Virginia.
In a letter written to President Barack Obama, Byrd said a new federal highway bill could help to create jobs, infuse the economy and correct crumbling infrastructure. Byrd is asking Obama to move forward with a long-term, comprehensive reauthorization of federal surface transportation and transit programs.
The current federal highway authorization bill expired on Sept. 30. Congress passed only a temporary extension of the bill, which is set to expire on Dec. 18. A new federal highway bill could include funding for a number of projects in the region, including the King Coal Highway, the Coalfields Expressway, the Shawnee Parkway and the Colonial Intermodal Center in Bluefield.
“In many ways, a reauthorization is the best mechanism we have in Congress to continue to address our ailing economy,” Byrd said in a prepared statement Friday. “In October, the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest since April 1983. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some of the most significant job losses have been in the construction and manufacturing trades. The types of jobs that would be created through a reauthorization are those that we as a country desperately need: high paying jobs that would reach every pocket of the American landscape.”
Byrd joins U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., in calling upon the administration to reauthorize a federal highway transportation bill. Rahall, during a stop earlier this week in Mercer County, said a new highway bill would be as beneficial as a new stimulus package.
Rahall has requested funding for several projects in the region through the Fiscal Year 2010 Surface Transportation Project bill, including $16 million in funding for the proposed Colonial Intermodal Center project in Bluefield; $60 million to continue construction of the King Coal Highway in Bluefield to the Mercer County Airport, and another $44 million for the interchange of the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway in Welch.
In his letter to Obama, Byrd wrote, “Your administration’s efforts to infuse stimulus funds into our ailing economy have been innovative and extensive. However, unless there is a prompt and comprehensive reauthorization of transportation legislation, we will have missed a great opportunity to further address the creation of much-needed jobs, and to put our country’s economy back on the path to prosperity.”