Dive Brief:
- In its 2015-17 plan for repairing and improving roads and bridges in Tennessee, the state's Department of Transportation said the program totals $1.5 billion for 59 projects and 14 programs.
- Gov. Bill Haslam also said that the plan may have to be scratched and replaced with a drastically smaller one if Congress cannot approve a way to rescue the federal Highway Trust Fund. The fund is on track to run out of money for any new work by – or before – the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.
- Tennessee gets about half of its transportation funding from the trust fund, and the state has a pay-as-you-go, no-debt approach to roads.
Dive Insight:
The dependence of states on the trust funds for highway work varies widely, from states that get far smaller percentages of their budgets from Washington than Tennessee does to ones that rely much more on federal dollars. There seems to be nationwide agreement, though, that it will be a stunning failure of a basic federal government function if the Obama administration, Senate Democrats and House Republicans cannot resolve the issue.