DOT Weekly Stimulus Payouts Rise $91M

The Department of Transportation paid out another $91 million in stimulus payments for construction projects in the week ending July 17, bringing its total disbursements to $774 million.

That means DOT has more than doubled its actual spending in the past month, from $370 million as of June 19, as states draw funds to pay bills on projects DOT earlier approved. Typically, states contract the work and make payments, and then are reimbursed by the federal funds provided by the Recovery Act.

So far, DOT has approved $22.2 billion in project spending. While the emphasis was on highway, bridge, rail, airport and waterway port projects that could quickly put people to work, the states can apply the money to projects that take up to two years to complete.

Further rounds of DOT spending are just getting started, including a high-speed rail portion of $8 billion and a discretionary grants program of $1.5 billion. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said a lot of that money will be available to ports, since many states did not divert much money from highways to port infrastructure in the initial round of project requests.

The Federal Highway Administration, which is handling many of the initial DOT stimulus projects, said it has obligated more than $7 billion to back more than 2,300 projects in all states. The Federal Aviation Administration has listed about 350 projects its $1.1 billion stimulus portion will support.

Critics have said the Obama administration’s plan is not working well enough to quickly pick up the economy, and has been slow to spend out. Out of a $787 billion total stimulus package, all U.S. agencies through July 17 had approved projects totaling $187 billion for states to use, and disbursed $67 billion.

Click here http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/investments-agency to see the latest figures, by agency.

Some of that went out in the first few weeks to states for federal matching funds for Medicaid programs, or to extend jobless benefit payments. The package quickly sent supplemental income checks to recipients of Social Security and federal railroad retirement benefits. It also cut payroll taxes starting in the spring.

President Obama and Vice President Biden have both said they want the stimulus to spend faster, however. Secretary LaHood warned from the outset that the DOT’s infrastructure construction piece of the Recovery Act would first line up project authorizations, and would later pay out funds once the project bills began coming in this summer.