Foxx Promises April Highway Bill
The Obama administration will unveil a multiyear surface transportation authorization bill next month, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a House of Representatives subcommittee March 12.
The bill will provide details in April for $302.3 billion in transportation spending spread over four years starting Oct. 1, but it will not necessarily include funding details. Foxx made the announcement as part of his testimony before the House panel on transportation appropriations.
Chairman Tom Latham (R-Iowa) asked for greater specificity on the finance section for highway and other spending, and Foxx said the administration’s March 4 budget alluded to funding in the Treasury Department section. Foxx repeated the administration’s desire to fund transportation for four years with money generated by “pro-business corporate tax reform.”
Foxx said a proposal by Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) would be an appropriate starting point for negotiations. Latham and other Republicans asked for more presidential leadership on budgetary issues, and Foxx responded that finance should be “a dialogue not a monologue.”
Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, said the committee’s ranking Democrat, Nita Lowey (N.Y.), and he are in agreement to pass the 12 major appropriations bills into law individually rather than as part of a single, massive omnibus package.
