DOT Pushes Stimulus Out Faster

The Department of Transportation sharply escalated its stimulus payouts in the week ending June 26, to a total of $442 million from $370 million a week earlier.

Overall, the U.S. government made more than $5 billion in additional stimulus money available for state-approved spending in the latest week, and paid out over $3 billion in that time.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said for months that stimulus spending on first-round road, bridge and rail projects would take off this summer, after states ramped up their construction efforts and started drawing from stimulus funds to pay some of those bills.

Some critics in Congress have complained that the stimulus plan is injecting funds into the economy too slowly to offset rising unemployment and warn it may not do enough to pull the U.S. out of recession. President Obama has also said he wants to see the stimulus funds spent faster.

The administration’s www.recovery.gov Web site said agencies have made $157.8 billion available to states as of June 26, up from $152.4 billion by June 19. They have paid out a total of $56.3 billion, for another $3.4 billion spent in that week.

DOT has made $20.463 billion available, compared with $19.005 billion by June 19. Its payout level remains low compared with amounts committed, but states just recently hit their deadline to commit at least 50 percent of available money.

In many, construction projects are just getting started and bills are coming in now for other projects that began weeks ago.

As LaHood predicted, his team appears to be pushing the money through faster to reimburse states for projects. The $72 million increase in money spent from June 19 is about a 20 percent gain for one week. Total disbursements nearly tripled from the end of May, when DOT had spent just $152 million of funds it had made available.

Among its efforts, DOT reported that by June 26 the Federal Aviation Administration had committed “all but $5 million of the $1.1 billion Recovery Act funding for airport grant projects.” That covers 331 projects around the country, it said. Much of those funds go to runway resurfacing, ramp repairs and some building construction.

The Maritime Administration, DOT said, is helping the ports of Portland, Ore., and Toledo, Ohio, with port-specific projects funded by the Recovery Act’s highway spending package. Toledo was authorized to proceed on June 26.

Click here http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/budget-account-report&agency_code=69 for a breakdown of DOT stimulus spending.

Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.