Legislation ensures the Highway Trust Fund remains solvent – without action the Fund will go bankrupt in August, jeopardizing critical projects and construction jobs and creating uncertainty for business and local governments across Minnesota

Klobuchar urges the House of Representatives to approve the bill and keep important transportation projects moving forward; focus now must be on passing a multi-year transportation bill that ensures long-term certainty and keeps America competitive in the global economy 

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar today announced the Senate has passed legislation ensuring critical funds for Minnesota highways. The legislation ensures the Highway Trust Fund remains solvent – without action the fund will go bankrupt in August, jeopardizing critical projects and construction jobs and creating uncertainty for business and local governments across Minnesota.

“With our extremely short construction season and long winter, ensuring that our transportation projects can continue to move forward is critically important to Minnesota,” Klobuchar said. “This legislation will make sure we don’t hit the brakes on transportation projects across the state, and the House needs to take quick action to pass this bill so it can be signed into law. Our focus must now be on passing a multi-year transportation bill that ensures long-term certainty and keeps us competitive in the global economy.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation has indicated that without additional funding the Highway Trust Fund will be insolvent by the end of August. As a result, state transportation agencies across the cross country would be forced to pull back on tens of thousands of transportation projects, leaving thousands out of work.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, inefficiencies in infrastructure are expected to drive up the cost of doing business by an estimated $430 billion in the next decade. Americans spend 5.5 billion hours a year stuck in traffic at a cost to the economy of $121 billion or $818 per motorist.

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