WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Candice Miller (MI-10), a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, today announced that she will introduce a bill in the House of Representatives to waive the requirement that Michigan match federal highway funds in order to receive federal dollars for road projects.  Under the current funding formula, the federal government pays for eighty percent of road projects and requires states to provide the remaining twenty percent or lose federal funding all together.  Responding to news that Michigan will forgo $740 in federal funding for road projects because the state cannot afford the required matching funds, Miller stated that these economic times call for special measures and that this is no time to withhold funding from the economically hardest hit state in the nation. 

 “I understand the concept that states need to provide matching funding in order to receive federal dollars,” said Miller.  “However, these are extraordinary times, and Michigan has been uniquely devastated by the current economic crisis.  Withholding $740 million in road projects will only make things worse.  Further, giving that money to another state, when Michigan is already a donor state, is patently unfair.”

 Miller was a strong advocate during debate on the economic stimulus package to waive the matching requirement for states to receive highway funds.  In that case, the matching requirement was waived because the point of the measure was to provide shovel ready projects, or jobs, to states that are hurting and to stimulate the economy.  Miller believes that the same principle applies to federal highway funding today, and that the matching requirement for Michigan is punitive due to the extraordinary circumstances the state now finds itself in as the loss of manufacturing jobs has a devastating impact on unemployment rates and the economy.  Not only does Miller plan on introducing legislation, but she has also written a letter to Ed Montgomery, the Obama administration’s Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, asking him to support her efforts.   

 “Our taxpayers pay more into the highway fund via the gas tax than they receive in federal dollars,” said Miller.  “Adding insult to injury, at a time when our state has some of the highest unemployment rates in the country, we will lose federal dollars to another state even though Michigan taxpayers have paid into the national highway fund because the state cannot afford the match.  What I am asking is simply that federal road dollars already authorized be sent to Michigan, but without the matching requirement from the state.  This will not cost the taxpayers one extra dollar, yet will make a big difference to Michigan.”