House Easily Passes Short-Term Highway Funding Patch
The House on Oct. 27 easily passed a measure that would authorize funding for highway programs through Nov. 20. The bill now heads to the Senate, where GOP leaders there are expected to show it favorable support.
Moving the bill out of the House gives lawmakers a couple of days to avoid a shutdown of highway funding authority. The current authorization of the Highway Trust Fund account expires Oct. 29. If signed into law, the bill would mark the 35th time Congress has advanced a short-term fix for highway programs to the president’s desk. Since 2009, lawmakers have approved 34 extensions.
“Today’s Surface Transportation Extension Act will ensure that states can continue to fund transportation projects while Congress continues to make progress on the multi-year bill,” said Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House.
The measure also “recognizes that failing to extend the positive train control deadline now will have devastating economic impacts. …Not only will railroads stop shipping important chemicals critical to manufacturing, agriculture, clean drinking water and other industrial activities, but passenger and commuter rail transportation will virtually screech to a halt,” Shuster added.
Under the bill, railroads would have until 2018 to implement positive train control technology, or PTC. Most railroads have stressed that they will not make a Dec. 31 deadline to implement the technology designed to automatically slow down or stop a train.
