House Passes Highway Bill

A multiyear highway bill that would reform a controversial safety performance scoring program for carriers and set in motion a program to expand the role of young truckers in interstate commerce easily passed the House on Nov. 5.

The $325 billion legislation reauthorizes transportation and transit programs for six years. It passed by a vote of 363-64.

In July, the Senate passed its highway bill with similar reforms to the safety scoring program.

The House vote sets up a highly anticipated meeting with Senate transportation leaders for lawmakers to produce a final bill for President Obama.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), said they are anticipating readying compromised highway legislation before Thanksgiving. The goal, they indicated, is to complete the bill before a Nov. 20 expiration of funding authority for highway programs.

The White House has signaled its support of the legislation, despite raising concerns over funding levels.

Overall, the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 would authorize $261 billion for road programs, $55 billion for transit systems and about $9 billion for highway safety programs.

The bill “provides strong reforms and policies to help us improve America’s transportation system, and now we can get to work on resolving the differences with the Senate bill and carry a final measure over the goal line,” Shuster said.

“Businesses, labor, states and local communities are depending on us to pass a consensus-based, bipartisan bill which provides funding certainty that will enable them to modernize our nation’s highways, bridges and transit systems. We are also pleased that this bill provides the opportunity for increased investment in our aging infrastructure,” Inhofe and Senate transportation committee ranking member Barbara Boxer of California said in a joint statement.

On trucking matters, the bill would require the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to make “corrective actions” to its Compliance, Safety, Accountability program that scores motor carriers for their safety. The “corrective” plan would call for a review of CSA by the National Research Council of the National Academies, during which time CSA scores would be removed from public view.

The bill also would create a graduated commercial driver license program that would establish a task force designed to start the process of allowing drivers between the ages of 19 years, 6 months and 21 to operate trucks in interstate commerce. Both provisions garnered support from trucking leaders.

“The job isn’t finished, and we look forward to Congress passing a long-term, well-funded bill that improves efficiency and safety on our highways,” said ATA Chairman Pat Thomas, who is UPS’ senior vice president of state government affairs.

Prior to advancing the bill, the House took up more than 100 amendments. Representatives rejected an amendment by Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) that would have kept CSA scores public while federal regulators reviewed the program. The House also rejected an amendment by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) that sought to remove the graduated commercial driver license program in the bill and replace it with a requirement for the secretary of transportation to conduct a review of the laws allowing drivers between 18 and 21 to operate trucks within a state.

Also defeated was an effort by Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) aimed at allowing states to increase weight limits for trucks. Ribble’s amendment would have allowed states to determine whether to allow an increase in truck weight limits to 91,000 pounds. The current standard weight limit for interstate highways is 80,000 pounds.

Additionally, Republican-backed amendments seeking to change the Export-Import Bank were rejected. That set up a reauthorization of the bank in the event that the highway legislation is signed into law by Obama. The Ex-Im bank finances foreign companies’ purchases of U.S. products.

An amendment sponsored by Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) was adopted. It is designed to identify extra funds for the bill by liquidating the Federal Reserve surplus account and deposit it in the General Fund.

The House bill mirrors the Senate-passed highway bill’s three-year funding structure, which partly entails selling barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and offsets found by reducing what the Federal Reserve pays to large banks.

Missing from the bill’s floor consideration was debate on a proposal by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) aimed at gradually raising fuel taxes as a way to back infrastructure projects with the Highway Trust Fund. ATA and other transportation groups backed Blumenauer’s effort.

“This is a missed opportunity to provide certainty for the hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake and give states and local governments the federal partnership they need and deserve,” Blumenauer said.

Bud Wright, executive director at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, added: “The momentum is there, and we encourage both chambers to quickly proceed to conference negotiations so a bill can be sent to the president prior to . . . Nov. 20.”

Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, urged Congress to “put aside partisanship and come together in conference to produce a final bill with strong, sustainable investment.”