One
of the prominent members of Florida’s Congressional delegation is House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica of Winter Park. Ordinarily,
that would mean that Florida’s federally funded highway projects see top
priority around Washington. D.C. However, this busy construction season, just
the opposite is the case. Mica’s past positions and his inability to rally his
own party’s support around any compromise in the conference committee
negotiations over the once again stalled federal Highway Trust Fund
reauthorization legislation to replace the band aid interim extension which
expires next week are putting in peril plans to widen Interstate 4, the Daytona
to Tampa expressway which is the closest Interstate to Mica’s house.
The
I-4 road construction proposal, to add toll lanes in the median to the highway’s
free lanes in each direction, runs afoul of the provisions Mica used the power
of his chairmanship to insert in the 2005 Highway Trust Fund reauthorization
legislation, which prohibit the addition of toll charging so called “Lexus
Lanes” to Interstates which are now freeways. Mica has dropped his Lexus Lane
opposition, but changing the law depends on passage of a long term Highway
Trust Fund reauthorization bill removing the partial toll prohibition.
Despite
Mica’s powerful Congressional leadership position, he can’t rally enough
Republican support behind the Senate passed, two year, $109 billion Highway Trust
Fund reauthorization bill to get conference committee approval of the measure
without including pet Republican add-ons like fast track approval of the
Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, and the tea-party
favored extra which would delete all funds for bike path construction and other
highway beautification programs.
The
I-4 widening proposal depends in large part on the investment of private funds
through bonds which could only be repaid out of toll revenues collected on the
newly built lanes. Work on the highway, planned to start turning over dirt in
2014, will be delayed well beyond that time frame if the conference committee,
on which Mica sits, only manages to kick the can down the road past the
upcoming Presidential election in November with another six month band aid
interim reauthorization. While Mica is busy beating the Republican Party drum
for the XL Pipeline, which is just an election year campaign rhetoric issue,
his own neighbors and constituents down in Florida are facing lost construction
job opportunities and worsening traffic jams because of his failure of
leadership.
