House Sets Up Dec. 3 Vote on Highway Bill
A five-year, $305 billion highway policy bill that would reform a safety performance scoring program for motor carriers and establish a grant program for national freight projects has been scheduled for a vote on the House floor Dec. 3.
The chamber’s Rules Committee, which sets debate parameters for bills en route to the floor, easily greenlighted the highway bill’s consideration. The reconciled bill would mark the first time in a decade that the chamber has taken up such a multiyear measure. Federal transportation policy has operated through a series of authorizing extensions since 2009.
For transportation authorizers, this final bill represents the culmination of long and, at times, tedious negotiating over provisions having to do with truck safety policy, railroad braking systems and funding programs.
“We’ve heard all the states and communities have significant infrastructure needs, and they need long-term certainty to address them,” House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said at the Rules hearing Dec. 1. Shuster is among the lead authors of the legislation.
Overall, the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation, or FAST Act, would require the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to ensure its Compliance, Safety, Accountability scoring program for trucking companies provides “the most reliable” analysis possible. So it calls for a review of the program and, during that review period, CSA scores would be removed from public view.
The bill also includes a $4.5 billion grant program for freight and highway projects, and it calls on FMCSA to determine the impact an increase in minimum insurance levels would have on safety, small- and minority-owned carrier and owner-operators, and study the ability of the insurance industry to offer expanded coverage.
Relying on hair testing as an alternative to urine tests for employment screening is another provision tucked in the bill. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would have a year to establish federal standards for the hair-testing provision that would need to be adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
A collection of "pay-fors" were used to fund the legislation. These included relying on a Federal Reserve surplus account and selling units at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The bill’s managers anticipate the Senate will take up the measure Dec. 4, the day when federal highway funding authority expires.
