Session of 1998
                   
House Concurrent Resolution No. 5044
         
By Committee on Transportation
         
2-23
            9             A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION urging the United States Congress
10             to enact legislation reauthorizing the federal highway program by May
11             1, 1998.
12            
13           WHEREAS, A safe and efficient highway system is essential to the
14       nation's international competitiveness, key to domestic productivity, and
15       vital to our quality of life; and
16           WHEREAS, Kansas has critical highway investment needs that cannot
17       be addressed with current financial resources; and
18           WHEREAS, The current level of federal funding for the nation's high-
19       way system is inadequate to meet rehabilitation needs, to protect the
20       safety of the traveling public, to begin solving congestion and rural access
21       problems, to conduct adequate transportation research and to keep the
22       United States competitive in a global economy; and
23           WHEREAS, The federal highway program is financed by dedicated
24       user fees collected from motorists to improve the highway system and
25       deposited in the federal highway trust fund. The Taxpayer Relief Act of
26       1997 transferred all federal motor fuel taxes into the highway trust fund
27       but provided no mechanism to ensure the funds are spent; and
28           WHEREAS, The 1998 congressional budget would constrain federal
29       highway spending well below the level of highway tax receipts, allowing
30       the highway trust fund's cash balance to grow from just over
31       $22,000,000,000 today to more than $70,000,000,000 by the year 2003;
32       and
33           WHEREAS, Kansas and other states will be prohibited from obligat-
34       ing any federal highway funds after April 30, 1998, unless Congress and
35       the President enact new highway legislation by that date; and
36           WHEREAS, Without federal highway funds, many states will be
37       forced to delay life-saving safety improvements, congestion relief projects,
38       and other road and bridge improvements: Now, therefore,
39           Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Kansas,
40       the Senate concurring therein: That the Legislature of the State of Kan-
41       sas urge the United States Congress to enact legislation reauthorizing the
42       federal highway program by May 1, 1998; and
43           Be it further resolved: That the reauthorization bill should fund the

HCR 5044

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  1       federal highway program at the highest level that the user-financed high-
  2       way trust fund will support; and
  3           Be it further resolved: That the Secretary of State be directed to send
  4       copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, Speaker
  5       of the House of Representatives of the United States, the President of
  6       the Senate of the United States, the Minority Leader of the House of
  7       Representatives of the United States, the Minority Leader of the Senate
  8       of the United States and to each member of the Kansas Congressional
  9       Delegation.
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