"At long last, the House has reached approval of the first piece of legislation in nearly a decade that will create in the most direct and immediate way hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions in economic stimulus," said DeFazio, a key leader on this legislation. "The funding through this legislation will invest money Americans have paid at the pump to create tens of thousands of jobs, putting Americans to work to improve the nation’s bridges, roads, highways, and mass transit. Most importantly, we don’t have to borrow the money to make it happen."

For every billion dollars spent on rebuilding our roads, bridges and transit systems the Department of Transportation estimates that 47,000 jobs are created and $6.1 billion in economic activity is generated. That means that this bill is estimated to create over 127,000 jobs and $16.5 billion in economic stimulus.

DeFazio Boosts Oregon’s Overall Funding: As Ranking Democrat on Highways, Transit and Pipelines Subcommittee and a main negotiator on the final version of SAFETEA-LU, DeFazio worked to increase overall funding for Oregon. DeFazio negotiated a change in the highway funding formula to hike Oregon’s share by $210 million for a total of $2.21 billion. In addition, Oregon will receive a total of $297.2 million in transit formula funding over five years.

As a result, Oregon will now receive more gas tax dollars than it contributes to the Federal Highway Trust Fund. Currently, Oregon receives $.99 for every $1 it contributes to the Federal Highway Trust fund. Now under this bill, for every $1 Oregon contributes to the Highway Trust Fund, the state will get back $1.02 in federal highway and transit investment.

DeFazio Helps Fund State’s Critical Priority: A new category was added to this long-term highway and transit funding bill, called Megaprojects. To receive funding, a Megaproject must have national and regional significance. Under this new category, DeFazio secured $160 million for reconstruction of bridges on I-5 in Oregon and $40 million for reconstruction of bridges across the state.

Less Local Dollars Needed for Transportation Projects: DeFazio secured language in SAFETEA-LU that lowers the "local match" for most transportation projects listed in the bill for Oregon. When federal dollars are used for a project, the standard funding split is 20 percent local to 80 percent federal. But because Oregon supports a large amount of federal lands, he was able to change the law to cut the local share in half to 10.27 percent with the federal share at 89.73 percent. This applies to all high priority projects and mega projects included in the bill.

The Bill is Paid-For: The funding for SAFETEA LU is fully paid-for through the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which is sustained with gas tax receipts. It does not add to the federal deficit.

The Senate approved the legislation today. It will now be sent to the president to be signed into law.

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