Tag: Highways Funding

Inflation Makes State’s Highway Construction More Expensive

Secretary for the West Virginia Department of Transportation, Jimmy Wriston, told the Joint Committee on Government and Finance that inflation is making highway construction more expensive in the Mountain State.

At an interim meeting of the Joint Committee on Government and Finance on July 26, West Virginia Department of Transportation Secretary Jimmy Wriston said the department’s contracts for current projects have clauses to adjust for rising inflation. While it relieves some of the added costs for contractors, it raises the project fee for the department.

“If all of our projects today were completed, and I had to calculate that asphalt and fuel adjustment and pay that today, it would exceed 14 million dollars,” said Wriston.

Supply chain shortages are also making it harder for the department to buy equipment and vehicles.

“The Division of Highways runs on its trucks,” Wriston said. “That’s a particular concern to us.”

Wriston suggested the state should develop a policy for upcoming projects under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to include clauses that compensate contractors to offset added expenses.

“We’re always anxious to be told what we can do to lower barriers to activation on things,” Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said. “So if you’re trying to adjust or make mid-course corrections on anything that we can do to be helpful on, we’d certainly appreciate knowing that.”

Congress Still Working to Pass Long-Term Road Funding

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is hopeful Congress can approve a long-term funding plan for the nation’s roads and bridges even though senators were forced to…

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is hopeful Congress can approve a long-term funding plan for the nation’s roads and bridges even though senators were forced to approve yet another short-term measure last week. The Senator made a quick stop in Nitro to talk with reporters about the measure Monday.

Members of the U.S. Senate, including Capito and Sen. Joe Manchin, approved a three-year funding bill Thursday that would mean more than $2 billion in road funding for West Virginia over the bill’s duration. 

Senators, however, were forced to also approve a short-term funding expansion through the end of October because members of the House of Representatives had already left town for their August break.

Still, Capito said she hopes the House will take up the long-term bill as soon as they return in September.

“We are really pushing the House to pass a long-term bill so this state, our state, will have the certainty that we know this project is going to be moving forward, [this] many people are going to go back to work,” she said.

In a statement Thursday, Manchin said the House’s inability to vote on the bill leaves Congress “to govern by crisis.”

“I would have preferred to just pass the Senate’s long-term transportation bill,” Manchin said. “My hope is that Congress will be able to pass a long-term extension of this vital funding immediately upon returning from the August recess.”

During that September session, Congress will also discuss a nuclear deal with Iran and a reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.

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