The multi-year measure would support infrastructure investment, including a first-time dedicated funding source for freight-related projects, but is only partially funded so far.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a six-year, $325 billion bill to reauthorize, and make policy changes to, surface transportation programs that fund highway and transit construction, and ensure vehicular safety. Attached to the legislation is language that would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which has been shuttered for new business since July when Congress failed to renew its charter.
It is the first piece of major legislation moved through the House since Paul Ryan took over as speaker a little over a week ago.
The legislation, however, is only funded for the first three years because there is not enough money coming into the Highway Trust Fund from motor fuel user fees to pay for anticipated projects and no agreement yet on how to make up the difference. It includes a provision that automatically allows for increased infrastructure investment if Congress can find another stream of revenue to augment the Highway Trust Fund without requiring lawmakers to vote on another authorization.
As has been the case in recent years, no proposals to increase the motor fuels tax, which hasn’t been adjusted since 1993, were included.
Industry groups and unions, which favor a reinvigorated investment program in transportation infrastructure after years of relative neglect that have led to increased congestion and vehicle-damaging road deterioration, applauded passage of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform (STRR) Act of 2015 by a vote of 363 to 64.
The bill now goes to a conference committee to iron out differences with transportation legislation passed by the Senate last summer and create a final bill. Both chambers on Thursday named their negotiating teams.
Final passage would represent the first multi-year surface transportation legislation in a decade. Since 2009, states have been dealing with a series of short-term extensions, including the two-year MAP-21 law, that have made it more difficult for transportation departments to plan projects in advance because of funding uncertainty.
One of the most significant new aspects of the transportation bill is the establishment of a dedicated funding program for infrastructure aimed at supporting goods movement. The House version calls for $4.46 billion to be set aside for freight projects of national significance, with the money distributed through a competitive grant program. Up to $500 million of that amount is eligible for intermodal and freight rail projects that benefit highway users. An amendment included in the bill allows small and mid-sized freight projects to compete for funding as well.
“The Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act targets our nation’s most problematic freight chokepoints by awarding funding through a merit-based, freight-specific competitive grant – an approach CAGTC has long championed. These investments will pay dividends to U.S. manufacturers, farmers, and all goods-moving industries,” Sharon Neely, board chairman for the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors and chief deputy executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, said in a statement.
The legislation also instructs the Department of Transportation to make freight policy decisions based on multimodal factors, streamlines the environmental review and permitting process to accelerate project delivery, establishes a National Surface Transportation and Innovative Financing Bureau to provide project assistance to state, local and private partners, and promotes the deployment of technologies that will reduce congestion.
It also includes language that removes motor carrier safety rating scores in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA program while questions about how that data is compiled are addressed.
Both bills contain provisions that amend the interstate tolling pilot program. Tolling existing interstate highways is currently prohibited except for three states that hold slots under a pilot program. The bills would force those slots to be transferred to new states after a three-year period if they did not implement a toll scheme.
The House bill would also require states to have enabling legislation before the tolling pilot can be implemented and does not allow the diversion of toll funds for purposes other than improvements to the tolled road. Truckers and other groups are opposed to any expansion of tolling on existing highways because it would drive up their costs and be a form of double taxation on top of fees collected at the pump to maintain the transportation system.
Amendments allowing longer combination tractor-trailers to increase productivity and requiring the Bureau of Transportation Statistics to track port data in an effort to help prevent a repeat of the slowdown at West Coast ports last winter both failed. Similar language to the Port Performance Act is in the Senate’s transportation bill and supporters, including the retail industry, are urging it be included in the final package.
“For far too long, Americans and the communities in which they live have been forced to live with the consequences of years of inaction on the backlog of investments needed to repair and modernize our failing surface transportation system. We are especially pleased that [Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leaders] Shuster and DeFazio rejected divisive amendments that would have done harm to our members and undermined our transportation system. Their leadership proves that it is still possible for Republicans and Democrats to cooperate on issues that matter to the American people,” Edward Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department at the AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
“While passage of this bill is a landmark achievement, we must not lose sight of the fact that the funding levels do not meet our country’s mounting transportation challenges. We hope that as the House and Senate work together in conference, more revenues will be found to significantly boost transit, highway and bridge investments.”
House passes $325b transportation spending bill
