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Highway Hogs

Highway Demonstration Projects

$12.5 billion

"It has become a choice between paying for the truly essential public safety concerns or continuing to spend for these highway demonstration projects." Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, March 16, 1995.

Highway demonstration projects are generally specific construction projects requested by a Member of Congress. Earmarked highway demonstration project funding is usually added to a state's regular budget allocation for roads. These projects are typically not needed and often face significant citizen opposition.

Green Scissors Proposal
Deny funding for highway demonstration projects authorized in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and other projects included in annual transportation funding bills. This action would save taxpayers approximately $12.5 billion over five years. This number comes from the average annual spending on demonstration projects from TEA-21 ($1.5 billion), added to an estimate of additional funding used for demonstration projects ($1 billion) in annual transportation funding bills, based on the FY2001 amount.

Current Status

In 1998, Congress passed the new six-year transportation funding bill, TEA-21. The law contains 1,850 demonstration projects, many of which are highway construction projects. Since then, these projects have received automatic funding. In the fiscal year 2001 Department of Transportation funding bill (H.R. 4475), projects authorized by TEA-21 received $1.6 billion dollars.

In addition, the FY2001 funding bill contains an extra $1.37 billion in special projects (mostly highways) as political favors. These projects were included after Congress determined that more gasoline tax revenue than anticipated flowed into the Highway Trust Fund in the past year. This extra funding was used for earmarked highway projects and for other purposes.

Program Hurts Taxpayers

These projects are often not critical to a state's transportation needs. A 1991 General Accounting Office (GAO) report found that more than half of the projects reviewed were not included in state and regional plans. GAO found that many of these projects "provided limited benefits." In addition, some demonstration projects reviewed would not have qualified for federal funding through the normal planning process.

Reliable cost estimates were not available for most demonstration projects, according to GAO. The GAO found a significant shortfall between the amount allocated for demonstration projects and the eventual cost of these projects. Federal taxpayers end up paying for the difference.

Projects exacerbate funding inequities among states. A 1993 GAO study found that if the funds provided for demonstration projects were redistributed based on the regular funding process, 31 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico would have received more funding.

Program Hurts the Environment

Projects often have significant citizen opposition and environmental impacts. GAO found that many demonstration projects had problems that would cause them to remain in the early project design stage longer than other projects. While TEA-21 includes an increased amount of non-highway demonstration projects supported by environmentalists, highway projects still comprise the vast majority of projects in the bill.

These projects conflict with local decision making and planning, in contrast with TEA-21's goals of giving local communities more control over the planning process and integrating transportation policy with environmental considerations.


Contacts

• David Hirsch, Friends of the Earth, (202) 783-7400 x215.
• Michael Replogle, Environmental Defense, (202) 387-3500.
• Cliff Isenberg, Concord Coalition, (202) 467-6222.