<p>The Associated General Contractors (AGC) of St. Louis announced a new weapon in its battle for adequate funds to maintain<br />Missouri's roads, bridges, and rails: affiliation with ARTBA - the American Road &amp; Transportation Builders Association.<br /><br />ARTBA "has a rifle-like focus on transportation issues," Len Toenjes said in announcing the affiliation. Toenjes is president of the AGC of St. Louis.<br />Noting that the national AGC already has lobbyists in Washington, D.C., Toenjes said that affiliation with ARTBA "will multiply our voice on<br />transportation policy."<br /><br />The affiliation couldn't come at a more important time. On Friday, the Bush administration admitted that the highway funding system is in crisis.<br />Reversing policy, the Administration now supports a House plan to restore $8 billion to the highway trust fund, money that Congress had taken out of the<br />fund 10 years ago to balance the budget. The House overwhelmingly approved the plan in July by a vote of 387-37, but it has been held up in the Senate<br />by, in part, a veto threat from the President.<br /><br />T. Peter Raune, president and CEO of ARTBA, said the administration reversed itself when it saw the bills coming in from the states and realized it did<br />not have the money to pay them. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced on Friday that the highway trust fund would run out of money by<br />the end of this month unless Congress puts more money into it.<br /><br />Raune said that everyone knew this day was coming; they just didn't expect it to come so soon. The culprit, he said, is higher gas prices, which<br />prompted car owners to drive less and purchase less gasoline. Since the highway trust fund is funded by a federal gasoline tax, the cutback in<br />driving has meant less money going into the fund that people had expected."Never have we seen a cutback of this magnitude," he said.<br /><br />The $8 billion Congress is offering is only a band-aid, Raune said. "Withouta [gasoline] tax hike, we'll be right back in the same boat in 2009," he<br />said.<br /><br />Even a gas-tax hike is only a medium-term solution, he added. If people continue to buy more fuel-efficient cars, electric cars, and alternative<br />fueled cars, and curtail driving, "eventually we'll have to go to a fee forevery mile a vehicle travels," he said.<br /><br />Toenjes said the funding crisis is even greater in Missouri, because of the way Missouri paid for its recent road construction. Missouri borrowed money<br />to pay for it current road program and next year the bond payments on thatdebt come due. That, he said, will mean 50 percent less state money for road<br />and bridge repair and maintenance.<br /><br /></p>