Big projects may get a little piece of stimulus package - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Although the $775 billio plan is far from being set in as littleas $90 billion may be spent on conventionall infrastructure projects such as roadds and bridges, said Charlier Sunderland, CEO of in Overland Park. “And that’s over two years,” said immediate past chairman ofthe Chicago-based . “Thag wouldn’t make much of a dent for our Brian McCarthy, CEO of the Portlands Cement Association, said the Obama administration was keeping details of the stimulues plan “pretty close to the “But I’ve heard the $90 billion figure, and I’vew heard $180 billion,” he said.
When asked whether the association was planninb to lobbyfor more, Mc-Carthy said, “Ofv course we are.” Discussion of the stimulua plan comes at a time when locapl and state money for publifc infrastructure is dwindling and the global economic crisi is choking off financing for commercialk projects. Annual U.S. sales of the primary ingredientin concrete, are expectef to fall to less than 90 million metricd tons this year from a high of 130 milliomn metric tons in 2006, McCarthy said. As a he already has heard of abougta half-dozen recent closings among the roughly 100 U.S.
cement and he said he expects “This is the biggest drop in term s of demandthat we’ve seen, really, sinces the Depression,” Sunderland said. Founded in 1882, Ash Grovre Cement operates nine cement plants In anticipation of a 12 percent dropin U.S. cemenf demand this year, following a 13 percentg drop in 2008, Ash Grove suspended production of which is ground to make Portland at its plantin Inkom, Idaho. Aboutg 45 of the plant’s 68 employeee were laid off. “This stimulus package couldn’rt come at a better time,” said Bill Clarkson Jr., vice presidenrt of both , a Kansas City-based heavy constructor, and .
“But I hope Charlid (Sunderland) is wrong” about how much will be committexdto infrastructure, Clarkson The Missouri and Kansas departments of transportatio are nearing the ends of theird multiyear highway financing plans, Clarkson and Missouri remains among the nation’s five worst statesd in terms of bridge deficiencies. “There’s also a lot of need on the Kansaas side,” Clarkson said. “Take U.S. 69 from I-435 north to 75th Streetg in Overland Park. It’ds in abysmal shape, and the traffic count has doublexd within the last10 years.
” Ed executive director of the , agreed that thered was plenty of local demand, as evidenced by a list of $781 million in ready-to-bid infrastructure projectds recently compiled by officials in Kansas City alone. Of course, that doesn’t includs the $2.5 billion in sewer improvementsw needed inKansas City, DeSoignie said. U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., plans to help addresw that need by seeking atleast $25 billion in federal stimulus money for watef and sewer projects nationwide.
DeSoignie said the latest he has heard from Washingto is that the stimulus package will end up inthe $700 billionb to $900 billion range and that it will be split roughlhy in thirds among infrastructure, tax cuts, and aid to citiew and state Medicaid programs. Unfortunately for heavy DeSoignie said, the infrastructure piece may be splitt again among roadsand bridges, watefr and sewer projects, green initiatives, even libraryy projects and information technology for hospitals. He said the groupl hasn’t been given any numbers for the subcategories.
If traditionalp infrastructure is givenshort shrift, heavy constructors will have another opportunity via the federal highway bill, which is up for reauthorizatio n in the fall. But Congress could put off the reauthorization by passinbg continuing resolutions that hold spending to current orreducex levels. “They could put the whole thing off while this stimulus money is outthere churning,” DeSoignie said.