Citing Red Tape, Lawmakers Aim To Wean State Off Federal Transportation Funds

Georgia is second to last in the country in transportation spending per capita. That means the state has to depend more on federal dollars to build and maintain the state’s roads and bridges. 

Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, wants to boost the amount the state spends on transportation. Part of the reason, he says, is to free Georgia from regulations tied to federal funds.

“They just add costs to it, as well as [make projects] two to three times longer, so it’s not trying to get away from it, it’s just we want to take control of our own destiny and have that dollar go a lot further than it will if you have a federal dollar tied to it,” Roberts said.

When federal funds are involved, projects must comply with laws like the Davis-Bacon Act, which covers worker pay, and the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires a rigorous assessment of the project’s impact on the environment. In terms of NEPA, backers of the transportation bill say Georgia has similar environmental requirements already in place. Michael Sullivan, the head of the American Council of Engineering Companies of Georgia, wants to see less dependence on federal funds.

“You have an alphabet soup of federal agencies that get brought in and you’ve got a tremendous amount of bureaucracy, and the result is a road that’s not really, in any fundamental way, different than it would have been had it only been through the state process,” Sullivan said.

But environmentalists insist it’s better to have an exhaustive process before a road is built than find out later there’s a problem.

“NEPA isn’t, in and of itself, a federal regulation. It helps you identify all the federal regulations at the beginning to make sure you’re not going to have problems down the road,” Colleen Kiernan, executive director of the Sierra Club’s Georgia chapter, said. 

The Davis-Bacon Act, meanwhile, dates back to the 1930s and ensures competitive pay for workers used on federally-funded projects. It’s what’s known as a prevailing wage law. 

Again, supporters of the transportation plan say it’s a fairly redundant requirement. David Moellering of the Georgia Highway Contractors Association expects little change in the event more projects are funded without federal money. 

“Because of the competitive nature of the construction industry, you’ll continue to see wages at a level that are typically higher than what the federal government requires,” Moellering said. “When you look at the work, it takes a higher skill level. That alone produces higher wages. There’s always a demand for skilled labor. It would be very simple for a worker to go work for another contractor that will pay them more.”

Regardless of what happens to the transportation bill, federal funding continues to be in short supply. The federal fund to pay for roads and bridges is on the brink of insolvency. Since 2005, Congress has approved a series of temporary fixes, the latest of which expires in May.