Congress Extends Highway Funds

This story appears in the April 2 print edition of Transport Topics.

Update: President Obama signed the transportation bill extension into law after this issue went to press.

With the House seemingly unable to agree on a new federal transportation funding program, Congress voted last week to extend existing funding levels for another 90 days, averting a shutdown of the nation’s highway safety and construction programs.

The House voted 266-158 on March 29, with the Senate — which has already passed its version of a permanent funding bill — agreeing to the extension on a voice vote hours later.

The extension, which President Obama was expected to sign into law as Transport Topics went to press, is the ninth since September 2009, when the most recent transportation funding law expired.

Without the latest extension, which lasts until June 30, the government would not have the power after March 31 to collect the fuel taxes that support transportation.

In an attempt to get a more stable funding guarantee for the upcoming construction season, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) tried, but failed, to win enough votes to attach her previously approved two-year reauthorization bill to the Senate extension.

After the vote, Boxer said the House’s extension and its refusal to pass the Senate’s two-year bill “just guaranteed 100,000 people they are going to lose their jobs” because funding contained in her bill for new projects will not be authorized.

In addition, Boxer said, the extension will damage the Highway Trust Fund, because the measure does not provide funding for the next 90 days beyond what is in the trust fund.

With fuel tax revenues dwindling in recent years, money for the trust fund has been supplemented with money from the nation’s general fund.

In the days leading up to the extension vote in the House, Democrats introduced the Senate’s $109 billion bipartisan reauthorization bill in the House.

The measure was crafted by Boxer, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking minority member. It passed the Senate 74-22 on March 14 (3-19, p. 1).

Republican leaders in the House, however, refused to allow a vote to go forward. They also have been divided over whether to support a five-year, $260 billion reauthorization plan offered by Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.).

At one point, the Mica bill would have eliminated trust fund money for public transportation, a provision that caused some Republicans to oppose the bill.

The day before the extension votes, American Trucking Associations, the National Association of Manufacturers and several construction groups sent a letter to Congress urging them to act.

“Our nation cannot afford a shutdown of the highway and transit program or a lapse in the excise taxes that support it,” said the March 28 letter. “Expiration of the program would cause a major disruption to highway and transit projects just as the construction season is getting under way.”

During debate on the House floor, Democrats complained that the failure of the House Republican leadership to agree to the Senate’s reauthorization bill would cost jobs.

Democrats also said that another 90 days would do nothing to ensure that a long-term reauthorization bill eventually would be passed in the House.

The extension is a plan from Republicans “to kick the can down the road for another 90 days, so that they can try to convince their conference to support something they have not been able to do over the last six weeks,” said Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), ranking minority member on the House Transportation Committee.

During the debate last week, Mica said Democrats were conveniently forgetting that they also failed, when they controlled the House, to come up with a reauthorization bill.

He also touted the Republican approach to reauthorization, saying that his bill is historic for its lack of earmarks.

“The . . . era of the biggest gorilla walking off with the most bananas is over,” Mica said.

After the March 29 votes, ATA spokesman Sean McNally said the federation is happy Congress agreed to extend and hopes it “will quickly return to the business of crafting a long-term transportation bill.”

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said his group is “optimistic that the House and Senate will use the time available to settle on a new, long-term reauthorization.”