News From ASET - October 11, 2004

ASET Endorses President Bush

Americans for Safe & Efficient Transportation officially endorsed President Bush for re-election this week. His commitment to progress, lower taxes, less regulation and support of both the shipper and trucking industries made this an easy decision. Jake Jacoby, Executive Director of ASET, urged its members to help "get out the vote" in their communities and to help support President Bush in any way possible as he gears up for a tough fight with Senator John Kerry (D-MA).

President Bush has demonstrated strong leadership in the area of transportation without breaking the bank - evidenced by his stand against unneccesary spending in the highway bill. ASET looks forward to a final reauthorization bill next year when Bush is re-elected.

Congress Passes Highway Bill Extension Until 2005

The Senate approved and President Bush signed the House’s recent spending authority for Highway Trust Fund programs until May 31, 2005, in an implicit acknowledgement that enactment of a comprehensive six-year surface transportation reauthorization bill was impossible in 2004. A copy of the extension can be viewed by clicking here. President Bush signed off on the idea of an extension over the last few weeks, which has paved the way for Congress to go back to the bargaining table to determine both policy and financial considerations for a final bill over the next eight months. All sides seem to agree that there will be a full six-year bill signed by May 31, 2005 but there were too many issues, not the least of which are the elections in less than a month from now, that were holding the bill hostage.

A final clean six-year bill has been consistently put on hold with extension after extension for over a year now because the House and Senate could not come to an agreement on funding levels and President Bush has held steadfast that both chambers must come down on their final numbers. While it does appear that Congress and the Administration are very close and that a full six-year bill is likely in 2005, all bets are off if the Democrats regain control of the Senate, House or the Presidency. If that were to occur, then new Conferees would be named and new negotiations likely would take place.

As for ASET, committee and congressional staffers have indicated that our weight issue has been brought up by staffers on the House and Senate side, as well as Congressman Rehberg but that the financial problems always overwhelmed any policy discussions. Now that Congress doesn't have the elections looming over their heads we hopefully can begin to have substantial talks about how to get productivity legislation included into the six-year bill. We will continue to work with Congressman Rehberg, Chairman Young and his committee staff, and reach out to others on the Conference Committee as we have done for the past several months.

ASET will likely hold a Washington, DC fly-in meeting in late winter or early spring of 2005 to meet with several of the key Members of Congress to ensure our legislative objectives are included into any final highway bill. We will be in touch soon to discuss strategy and ways that companies involved with ASET can help.