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Graves Scores Win for Rural Missouri Counties

02/02/12

(Washington, D.C) U.S. Congressman Sam Graves was able to amend the Highway bill in the Transportation Committee today to keep in place important funding dedicated to fixing structurally deficient bridges in rural Missouri.

“This funding has been essential to many smaller counties in replacing old and dangerous bridges,” said Graves. “Across Missouri, there are some 14,000 local bridges that are used every day to get children to school, speed emergency responders to the scene and get product to market. Without this help, many bridges would simply continue to deteriorate until they were closed.”

The Highway Bridge Program which required states to spend a minimum of 15% of their HBP dollars on off-system bridges was eliminated in the draft bill.In FY09, Missouri was required to spend roughly $21.2 million, of which $7.2 million was spent in the 6th Congressional District.  According to the most recent data, Missouri has 14,027 off-system bridges, of which 2,453 are considered structurally deficient.   

“This is a big win for Sullivan County and for rural Missouri,” said Chris May, Presiding Commissioner of Sullivan County. “We would not be able to fix many of these older bridges without this dedicated funding. I’m thankful that Sam Graves listened to our concerns and secured this funding.”

Graves’s amendment required that states with more than 2,000 structurally deficient off-system bridges to spend 110% of the amount they spent in FY09. This would require Missouri to spend roughly $23 million on off-system bridges. The only other state that would qualify under the formula is Kansas.

“Missouri and Kansas have the biggest need for this program, because we have a lot of these types of bridges,” said Graves. “This amendment does not spend any more money; it just guarantees that money is set aside to fix these old and dangerous bridges.” 

Graves worked on several different versions of language to keep the funding dedicated for rural bridges in Missouri. During the Committee markup of the bill, the amendment was accepted. H.R. 7 is expected to be debated on the House floor in the coming weeks.

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