'We Have Six Weeks to Avoid This Crisis,' Sen. Harry Reid Says of Highway Funding Plan Expiration
WASHINGTON — The Senate's top Democrat on June 16 called on GOP congressional leaders to avoid passing a short-term highway funding extension and to pass a long-term bipartisan highway funding plan before transportation funding authority expires at the end of July.
“If the bill expires, Americans will be in big trouble,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on Capitol Hill alongside senior members of his caucus. “This is an unnecessary crisis. We have plenty of time to avoid it. We have six weeks to avoid this crisis.”
“Our transportation arteries need major surgery, but instead our critical infrastructure is bleeding out. The fact is Band-Aids are no longer going to do it. Reality is you cannot have big-league economic growth with a little league infrastructure,” added Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Finance panel.
A dozen senior Democrats urged Republicans to schedule hearings this month by the committees with jurisdiction over transportation programs, and said their starting point on transportation funding negotiations is the Obama administration's Grow America six-year, $478 billion transportation proposal. That proposal has been introduced as legislation in the House by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the ranking member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
On June 17, the GOP-led tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to discuss funding proposals that would ensure the sustainability of the Highway Trust Fund. The following day, the Senate Finance panel has scheduled a hearing focusing on the same topic.
The Environment and Public Works Committee, the key authorizing panel for transportation programs, announced it would mark up a six-year transportation bill the following week. Shortly after the Democrats’ press conference, a spokesperson for the EPW committee pushed back on the Democrats’ assertion that GOP leaders have done little to advance a long-term highway bill.
“Republicans are already outpacing Democrats in their effort to build new bridges of economic opportunity to Americans by addressing the future of our nation’s surface infrastructure,” the spokesperson told reporters.
The trust fund, which relies on receipts from federal fuel taxes, is projected to be unable to reimburse states for big-ticket transportation programs during the end of the summer or by early fall, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
