Senate to Offer New Road Bill Before May 31, Inhofe Says
This story appears in the March 2 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — A Senate transportation panel will unveil a multiyear highway bill before there is a need to approve a short-term extension of funding authority for highway programs, which expires in late spring, the panel’s chairman told Transport Topics on Feb. 25.
“We’re sticking with May 31. Once you start talking about extensions, that’s all you’re going to be talking about. You’re going to have an extension. Extensions are expensive,” Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said immediately after a hearing about the need to reauthorize the 2012 law, MAP-21.
“I just want to get it unveiled. I’m going to work for our timeline of May 31,” Inhofe said.
His declaration is shared by other Republican leaders, but across the aisle — where there’s agreement that something has to be done — Democrats aren’t so convinced that it can happen.
Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said that since Congress cannot deliver a new transportation-funding bill by the end of May, it should pass a temporary funding extension as soon as possible.
“We should do it by mid-March,” DeFazio said after addressing a gathering of state transportation officials here Feb. 26. “States start heavily committing themselves to the summer construction program in March, and if there is uncertainty . . . it’s likely they will cancel or postpone projects.”
But Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the committee and Inhofe’s counterpart, turned a cold shoulder to DeFazio’s suggestion.
“My goal, my focus is to try to do something on time, in May,” Shuster said after speaking at the same event, the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
Inhofe also addressed the AASHTO conference where he reiterated his stance to the dismay of the Republican lawmakers.
The fissure mirrors the legislative atmosphere on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers only temporarily extended MAP-21 in July, despite the Highway Trust Fund teetering on insolvency.
During last week’s MAP-21 hearing, Inhofe took aim at lawmakers who support expanding states’ responsibilities over transportation planning and funding, and reducing the role of the federal government. That concept is known as devolution.
In the previous Congress, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) offered a bill that would have significantly reduced federal highway funding within five years. Congress adjourned without advancing the measure to the White House, but Inhofe said he expects devolution legislation to come up again.
Members of the panel at the Feb. 25 hearing, such as ranking member Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), agreed there is an urgency to pass a new highway bill. Several state transportation agencies already have begun scaling back infrastructure projects amid federal funding uncertainty.
“If I don’t see anything moving forward, if there’s a lot of ho-hum, I think we need to get together and stand together and show the desperate situation we are in,” Boxer said. House transportation leaders have not indicated when they plan to unveil their highway reauthorization legislation. Shuster has pointed to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means panel, for a fix to the dwindling Highway Trust Fund.
The trust fund, backed by fuel taxes, is projected to run out of money by the time MAP-21 expires May 31. The U.S. Department of Transportation uses the account to help states maintain and repair aging roads and bridges.
Carlos Braceras, executive director of the Utah DOT, said states depend on a strong federal partner to maintain the transportation grid.
“Any effort to disrupt the federally funded, state-administered structure of the federal-aid highway program that has served our nation with great success could undermine the very foundation of a strong federal role in transportation investment,” Braceras said.
Industry executives told senators that aging rail and highway infrastructure, combined with a growing demand for goods and services, contribute to delays in their freight operations. Dave Gardner, vice president of supply chain and customer experience at Chicago-based Ingredion Inc., a food services firm, noted that available truck capacity, compared with truck demand, is at a “historic imbalance.”
“This has been amplified by tightening regulation on driver hours of service and deteriorating highway infrastructure,” Gardner added.
Shuster said at the AASTO meeting that the transportation bill, when introduced, will contain strong freight provisions.
“The focus needs to be back on the freight corridors in this country, to fund those important corridors that move product and move people,” he said. “We all know that if they’re not deteriorating, they’re in need of expanded capacity.”
Key congressional observers, meanwhile, told reporters that congressional transportation leaders will be unlikely to move an expansive reauthorization bill to the president’s desk before the May deadline.
