DOT Budget Cuts Highway Funding
Administration Proposes Borrowing Transit Funds
By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the Feb. 11 print edition of Transport Topics.
President Bush’s proposed Transportation Department budget for next year would increase DOT’s spending slightly but cut highway spending more than $2 billion from last year, and it proposes to borrow funds from mass transit to cover a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.
The budget proposal brought criticism from Democrats in Congress, as well as from representatives of trucking and highway users.
The administration proposed an overall DOT budget of $68.2 billion in the 2009 fiscal year, up slightly from the $67 billion it proposed the previous year, but it would give the Federal Highway Administration $40.1 billion, a cut of $2.04 billion from 2008 and $1 billion less than Congress authorized in the 2005 transportation law.
Most of the funding cut is in money dedicated to federal-aid highways — slashed by $1.8 billion to $39.4 billion from $41.2 billion last year.
“This budget helps move us forward on a new course that delivers high levels of safety, takes advantage of modern technology and financing mechanisms and eases congestion with efficient and reliable transportation systems,” DOT Secretary Mary Peters said.
The DOT budget is part of Bush’s $3.1 trillion spending plan, proposed Feb. 4.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said that in his budget, Bush “stayed well inside his ideological comfort zone. We got the same old, stale proposals, the same neglect of our nation’s infrastructure needs.”
John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said, “This proposal clearly leaves highway funding short of the FY 2009 level states had been promised.”
“There’s a $1.8 billion hole that the administration has created in their budget, and we would hope that, when Congress acts, they will find a way to fill it,” said Darrin Roth, director of highway operations for American Trucking Associations. “Given that Congress is debating an economic stimulus package right now, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to cut something that creates jobs and puts money into the economy. That would be counterproductive to their efforts.”
“The administration is going exactly the wrong way by cutting critical highway funding that keeps people and our economy moving,” said Greg Cohen, president of the American Highway Users Alliance.
Despite the highway-spending cuts, Peters told reporters “the president’s budget honors the commitments” of the 2005 transportation authorization, which called for a total of $286.4 billion to be spent over six years, up to September 2009.
Phyllis Scheinberg, the department’s chief financial officer, said the 2009 budget “brings to the total [investment] up to” $286.4 billion in spending on highways, transit and safety programs.
The 2008 budget Congress passed last year for DOT spent more than the 2005 bill had called for, in part because of a mechanism that allows the program to grow if trust-fund revenues rise in subsequent years, which it has done.
The budget, Peters said, “reflects a $3.2 billion shortfall in the highway account” of the trust fund but a $4.4 billion positive balance in the mass-transit account.
Because of the highway shortfall, “the president is requesting temporary authority to allow ‘repayable advances’ between the two accounts,” she said.
The differences in the projections, Peters said, are “the basis for the advances,” with the hopes the loans would “keep [the highway] fund solvent.”
However, Peters cited the fund’s problems to push once again for changes in the federal transportation program.
“We’re going to limp over the finish line,” she said, adding that she believed there needs to be “substantively different ways to fund transportation in America.”
As part of that approach, the budget once again requests a transfer of $175 million in unspent earmarks from the 1991 highway bill for DOT’s congestion initiative, even though a similar request was denied last year.
The budget calls for $100 million of that request to be directed to projects “that would implement congestion pricing,” as well as other congestion relief mechanisms, and $75 million to “support projects negotiated” as part of DOT’s Corridors to the Future program.
Last year, DOT selected six interstate highways — Interstates 5, 10, 15, 69, 70 and 95 — for the program, singling them out for special assistance in reducing congestion.
In addition to funding the nation’s highway program, the DOT budget also requests $541 million for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — an $11 million boost from last year.
The budget proposes dividing the funds into two categories — $230 million for federal motor carrier safety programs and $300 million for grants to states.
The budget also provides $851 million for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, plus:
• $168 million for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
• $70 million for the inspector general’s office.
• $23 million for the Surface Transportation Board.
This story appears in the Feb. 11 print edition of Transport Topics.
President Bush’s proposed Transportation Department budget for next year would increase DOT’s spending slightly but cut highway spending more than $2 billion from last year, and it proposes to borrow funds from mass transit to cover a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.
The budget proposal brought criticism from Democrats in Congress, as well as from representatives of trucking and highway users.
The administration proposed an overall DOT budget of $68.2 billion in the 2009 fiscal year, up slightly from the $67 billion it proposed the previous year, but it would give the Federal Highway Administration $40.1 billion, a cut of $2.04 billion from 2008 and $1 billion less than Congress authorized in the 2005 transportation law.
Most of the funding cut is in money dedicated to federal-aid highways — slashed by $1.8 billion to $39.4 billion from $41.2 billion last year.
“This budget helps move us forward on a new course that delivers high levels of safety, takes advantage of modern technology and financing mechanisms and eases congestion with efficient and reliable transportation systems,” DOT Secretary Mary Peters said.
The DOT budget is part of Bush’s $3.1 trillion spending plan, proposed Feb. 4.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said that in his budget, Bush “stayed well inside his ideological comfort zone. We got the same old, stale proposals, the same neglect of our nation’s infrastructure needs.”
John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said, “This proposal clearly leaves highway funding short of the FY 2009 level states had been promised.”
“There’s a $1.8 billion hole that the administration has created in their budget, and we would hope that, when Congress acts, they will find a way to fill it,” said Darrin Roth, director of highway operations for American Trucking Associations. “Given that Congress is debating an economic stimulus package right now, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to cut something that creates jobs and puts money into the economy. That would be counterproductive to their efforts.”
“The administration is going exactly the wrong way by cutting critical highway funding that keeps people and our economy moving,” said Greg Cohen, president of the American Highway Users Alliance.
Despite the highway-spending cuts, Peters told reporters “the president’s budget honors the commitments” of the 2005 transportation authorization, which called for a total of $286.4 billion to be spent over six years, up to September 2009.
Phyllis Scheinberg, the department’s chief financial officer, said the 2009 budget “brings to the total [investment] up to” $286.4 billion in spending on highways, transit and safety programs.
The 2008 budget Congress passed last year for DOT spent more than the 2005 bill had called for, in part because of a mechanism that allows the program to grow if trust-fund revenues rise in subsequent years, which it has done.
The budget, Peters said, “reflects a $3.2 billion shortfall in the highway account” of the trust fund but a $4.4 billion positive balance in the mass-transit account.
Because of the highway shortfall, “the president is requesting temporary authority to allow ‘repayable advances’ between the two accounts,” she said.
The differences in the projections, Peters said, are “the basis for the advances,” with the hopes the loans would “keep [the highway] fund solvent.”
However, Peters cited the fund’s problems to push once again for changes in the federal transportation program.
“We’re going to limp over the finish line,” she said, adding that she believed there needs to be “substantively different ways to fund transportation in America.”
As part of that approach, the budget once again requests a transfer of $175 million in unspent earmarks from the 1991 highway bill for DOT’s congestion initiative, even though a similar request was denied last year.
The budget calls for $100 million of that request to be directed to projects “that would implement congestion pricing,” as well as other congestion relief mechanisms, and $75 million to “support projects negotiated” as part of DOT’s Corridors to the Future program.
Last year, DOT selected six interstate highways — Interstates 5, 10, 15, 69, 70 and 95 — for the program, singling them out for special assistance in reducing congestion.
In addition to funding the nation’s highway program, the DOT budget also requests $541 million for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — an $11 million boost from last year.
The budget proposes dividing the funds into two categories — $230 million for federal motor carrier safety programs and $300 million for grants to states.
The budget also provides $851 million for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, plus:
• $168 million for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
• $70 million for the inspector general’s office.
• $23 million for the Surface Transportation Board.
