GOP Selects Pa. Rep. Shuster to Chair House Transportation Committee
This story appears in the Dec. 3 print edition of Transport Topics.
Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) was chosen as the next chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to succeed Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), making Shuster a central figure in the debate over the future of highway funding and investment in the nation’s infrastructure network.
“I look forward to continuing to work to reform programs, focus our resources where they are needed most, restore regulatory balance and better manage our federal assets,” Shuster said in a written statement after his selection last week.
He will officially take the position when the new Congress convenes in January.
Shuster told Transport Topics last month he would consider several options to solve the current federal transportation funding problem, including higher diesel and gasoline taxes and more tolling (11-12, p. 1).
He replaces Mica, who abandoned his effort to persuade the Republican conference to waive its rule on term limits and grant him two more years as chairman. Shuster is currently chairman of the panel’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous materials.
“Chairman Shuster is a great friend of the trucking industry, and we look forward to continuing to work with him to address the funding shortfall in the highway trust fund and to advance a strong safety agenda,” American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said.
“We share Chairman Shuster’s goal of putting America on a sustainable path to improving our nation’s infrastructure,” added ATA Chairman Michael Card, president of Combined Transport Inc., Central Point, Ore.
Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.), the committee’s ranking minority member, applauded Shuster’s selection, saying he goes “way back” with the incoming chairman and his family.
“I don’t want to give him a black eye with his leadership, but Bill and I see eye to eye on many critical issues and needs with our nation’s crumbling infrastructure,” Rahall said in a statement.
“The fact that we both understand the need to keep all funding options on the table is a reasonable and promising beginning to get America up to speed again with a long-term transportation authorization bill.”
Brian Turmail, spokesman for the Associated General Contractors, said Shuster possesses “an impressive collection of skills, knowledge and savvy” and that contractors look forward to working with him on the “chronic” funding problem undermining the nation’s transportation system.
The Highway Trust Fund is expected to be insolvent by 2015 because fuel-tax revenues have been declining for years as cars and trucks become more fuel-efficient. Congress has been supplementing the highway fund annually with billions of general-fund dollars.
Emil Frankel, transportation consultant and scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank, called Shuster “a moderate, pragmatic centrist” with “strong policy orientation” but
said it is unclear the role a committee chairman can play today in shaping transportation policy.
“The big funding questions seem to me to be driven by the leadership and what’s going to happen in the grand bargain, if there is a grand bargain,” said Frankel, who was assistant secretary for transportation policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2002 to 2005.
“Bill Shuster probably doesn’t have the power that Bud Shuster did 20 years ago,” Frankel said. Shuster’s father, Rep. E.G. “Bud” Shuster, was committee chairman from 1995 to 2001.
Another question about the upcoming Congress and Shuster’s chairmanship is whether lawmakers are “so fatigued from reauthorizing aviation and surface transportation” that they won’t address transportation, Frankel said.
Congress reauthorized airports, highways and public transit but not without bitter political battles that shut down airport construction projects nationwide before Democrats and Republicans reached agreement.
The battle over the highway and transit bill took three years and nine temporary funding measures before a bill was passed in June and signed by President Obama in July.
Republicans in the House couldn’t agree on a bill of their own, so the Senate’s bill was passed, but that $109 billion spending plan is only in effect for two years. It expires in September 2014.
Currently, Congress is not addressing transportation but concentrating on the “fiscal cliff,” the Dec. 31 date when a series of tax cuts expire and automatic budget cuts could occur if the parties cannot agree on revenue and spending plans before then.
Despite Congress’ failure to find long-term funding for transportation, Highway Trust Fund programs are safe from the possible automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration.”
Federal law specifically protects trust fund money, such as that for aviation and highways.
That means no cuts or shutdowns for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Highway Administration or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
However, TIGER grants, for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, begun as part of the economic stimulus, are funded from the general fund and would be cut.
Also, according to a congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, there is a legal question about the approximately $20 billion in supplemental general fund money authorized for the next two years by the new transportation bill.
If sequestration occurs, the aide said those general funds could be included in the budget cuts, meaning the Highway Trust Fund could run out of money earlier than expected if Congress fails to come up with a long-term funding plan.
One bright spot for trucking in the current lame-duck session may be renewal of bonus depreciation, which last year allowed businesses to make capital investments and take a 100% tax deduction on equipment rather than spread the deduction over three years.
The special deduction program, began to spur manufacturing during the recession, is credited with boosting truck sales late last year.
President Obama reiterated his support for the program last week.
