Mica Proposes Highway Bill That Would Slash Funding

House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica outlined a six-year, $230 billion transportation reauthorization plan that would sharply cut spending levels on road-related projects.

The most recent highway spending measure, which expired in 2009, provided $285 billion in spending over five years.

Mica, a Florida Republican, said House rules adopted earlier this year by the Republican majority require him to hold spending to the amount of revenue flowing into the Highway Trust Fund between 2012 and 2017.

“This proposal maximizes the value of our available infrastructure funding through better leveraging, streamlining the project approval process, attracting private sector investment and cutting the federal bureaucracy,” Mica said.

Equally as important, he said, his six-year proposal would provide “the stability states need to plan major transportation improvements and create long-term jobs.”

Mica outlined his bill at a July 7 press conference, a day after U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she and three colleagues were writing a bill that would authorize spending $109 billion over just two years, a rewrite of the $339 billion, six-year plan she unveiled in May (5-30, p. 5).

Mica provided few details, saying only that the bill would consolidate some environmental permitting processes and increase federal loan guarantees and funding for state infrastructure banks.

Mica said that trucking measures in his bill require the federal government to “establish a clearinghouse of positive drug and alcohol test results for commercial drivers” and create “minimum training requirements” for drivers.

Unlike Boxer’s bill, Mica’s does not specifically address freight. Mica’s chief transportation aide, Jim Tymon, staff director of the highways subcommittee, said the bill will focus on the National Highway System, which he said is trucking’s main concern.

Boxer’s bill reportedly would make freight a core program within the Federal Highway Administration and create a designated national network of freight corridors for which state and local governments could receive specific funding.

Neither Boxer nor Mica said when they would introduce their final bills.

In February, President Obama presented a $560 billion, six-year reauthorization plan.

The Boxer and Mica outlines delineate the political divide between the anti-spending, anti-regulatory mood in the Republican-controlled House and the concentration on job creation in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

“Their plan evaporates the trust fund,” Mica said of the bill being drafted by Boxer and three other senators — Max Baucus (D-Mont.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.).

Boxer said the House “has signaled that it intends to go in a direction that will result in overwhelming job losses in the construction sector, which has been devastated during the economic downturn.”