House Subcommittee, Defying Administration, Approves Six-Year Authorization Bill
By LUCAS WALL
AASHTO Journal
June 26, 2009
Voicing strong objections to the White House’s call to push back authorization of federal surface transportation programs by 18 months, the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee voted Wednesday to send a draft 775-page measure to the full committee.
Subcommittee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-OR, called the underinvestment in transportation in America “a national crisis” and said a new approach is necessary. The legislation proposes to spend $500 billion on surface transportation programs for Fiscal Years 2010 to 2015, a significant increase over the $286 billion authorized under the current law known as “SAFETEA-LU.” That measure expires Sept. 30.
“Unfortunately, recently and unexpectedly, the administration has said, ‘Let’s just wait 18 months,’” DeFazio said during his opening statement. “That’s not acceptable – 18 months of status quo means that we will not begin to address the backlog of maintenance on our legacy system, won’t begin to build out a new 21st century infrastructure; 18 months of funding means no state will start a project that takes more than 18 months. They can’t; so immediately, major projects will be taken off the table. That is not acceptable to this committee. We would forgo millions of jobs, and that is the last thing this administration should want.”
During two hours of introductory remarks, several subcommittee members from both sides of the aisle blasted the request U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made to Congress last week to postpone authorization.
“I was stunned by the administration’s suggestion that we table this for 18 months, which I don’t think achieves anything, and I think all of us agree that we need to move forward with this process,” said Rep. John Mica, R-FL and ranking minority member of the full House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “This is our jobs bill. This is our true stimulus bill. This is an opportunity for people to go to work in this country. Putting it off for 18 months is a very bad idea. We will work with the majority side to do everything we can to move this bill forward.”
Rep. John Duncan, R-TN and ranking minority member of the subcommittee, explained that Republican members had agreed to offer their amendments for discussion, but then withdraw them and not demand a vote Wednesday to expedite the process of moving the bill through subcommittee and to the full T&I Committee. Duncan noted he received more than 30 amendment requests from his party, a dozen of which were offered at the mark-up session and then withdrawn under an agreement with committee leaders that they would consult with amendment sponsors to work through their concerns before the bill comes to the full committee next month.
“Some of my members are concerned this bill has not done enough to streamline the process by which highway and transit projects are constructed,” Duncan said. “That is a main concern of mine. I don’t believe this bill has provisions strong and certain enough really to speed up projects to the extent we need to do so. Others are concerned that the bill focuses on very large cities at the expense of medium-size cities and smaller towns and rural areas.”
Full text of the draft bill was publicly released Monday following last week’s news conference by committee leaders releasing an 86-page blueprint outlining the key provisions of the bill.
During markup Wednesday, several representatives brought up their concerns that their states are “donors” to the Highway Trust Fund, with their motorists paying more in gas taxes to the fund than the state receives back in federal transportation grants, while other states are “donees,” receiving more funds than their drivers pay in taxes at the gas pump. Current law guarantees that every state will receive at least 92 percent of their drivers’ contributions to the trust fund. One of the amendments introduced by the minority was a provision sponsored by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-FL, to maintain the 92 percent minimum rate of return for the federal highway program.
Democratic Members Unite in Letter to Obama Opposing Delay
Nearly every Democratic member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee signed a letter Wednesday to President Barack Obama to “express our profound disappointment in your administration’s proposal to extend the current surface transportation programs for 18 months (through March 31, 2011). Your proposal fails to acknowledge the severity and urgency of the challenges facing the nation’s surface transportation system at this critical time. It will lock us into the discredited policies of the past and prevent us from moving toward the transportation system of the future.”
The Democrats stressed to Obama that the draft authorization bill moving through the committee focuses on several of the president’s emphasis areas including greenhouse-gas reduction, job creation and economic expansion, accountability for how federal dollars are spent, increased livability for communities, creation of a national infrastructure bank, and $50 billion in funding for high-speed rail (Obama’s top transportation priority).
“We owe it to future generations to act now, not in two or three years,” the letter states. “Every day that we wait for reform, lives are lost in motor-vehicle crashes. Every week we delay, more parents are stuck in traffic trying to pick up a child at school. Each lost month, the economy suffers and inefficiencies grow. And every year that we fail to act, the cost of reform becomes more expensive.
Signers warn the president that a delay in transportation authorization will lead to reduced state investments in infrastructure “and this slowdown will offset much of the benefit of the increased transportation investment provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
Funding the Authorization Not Addressed in Bill Draft
The bill adopted by the subcommittee proposes authorizing $500 billion over the next six years for surface transportation: $337 billion for highways, $100 billion for mass transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail, and $13 billion for highway and motor-carrier safety programs. The high-speed rail component would be brand new for an authorization measure, following up on the $8 billion appropriated in the recovery act this year and the president’s budget request for $1 billion in additional rail funding for each of the next five years. The high-speed rail program would be financed outside of the Highway Trust Fund.
How to pay for this spending is not addressed in the bill draft, since that is under the jurisdiction of the House Ways and Means Committee. The T&I Committee does not plan to address revenue measures in its portion of the legislation. The draft also does not contain distribution formulas or member earmarks for specific projects. Those details are to be added later.
Two Ways and Means subcommittees held a joint hearing yesterday to begin examining options for funding the transportation authorization. (see related story below) House T&I Committee James Oberstar, D-MN, has suggested implementing a fuel-tax increase once economic growth has returned for two consecutive quarters and then indexing the tax to the construction price index for future years. The White House has said numerous times it opposes raising fuel taxes during an economic recession. No figure has been mentioned publicly by Oberstar on what his tax increase would be once the recession ends. (The federal gas tax is currently 18.4 cents per gallon and has not been adjusted since 1993.)
DeFazio on Wednesday issued a news release proposing a transaction tax on crude oil securities to pay for the extra funding the Highway Trust Fund will need to sustain a $450 billion authorization through FY 2015. DeFazio said $140 billion in new revenue will be needed for that level of investment, and his tax proposal is estimated to bring in $190 billion over six years. His idea is to put a 0.02 percent transaction tax on futures contracts and a half-percent tax on the option for a futures contract. This tax increase is not included in the draft bill approved by his subcommittee.
“My proposal will not cost consumers one cent but will substantially increase our investment in our transportation infrastructure so we can move beyond the broken policies of the past toward a safer, cleaner, more-efficient transportation system,” he said. “A transaction tax on crude oil securities will close the gap in funding a 21st century transportation system while lowering the price of oil. It’s a win/win.”
Transportation Groups Supportive of House Subcommittee’s Action
Many transportation advocates, while still poring through details contained in the bill’s 775 pages, issued statements this week praising the Highways and Transit Subcommittee for taking the first formal step in moving a full six-year authorization measure through the lengthy legislative process. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has urged Congress to take action on two fronts to provide a stable funding stream for highway and transit projects.
“It is urgent that Congress immediately address the Highway Trust Fund shortfall, and also urgent that a six-year authorization bill be enacted as swiftly as possible,” said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley.
Other associations and labor and business groups have commended the bill’s movement and opposed the administration’s request to delay action.
“What we would hate to see is this debate be put on the back burner and just start up 18 months from now,” said Kurt Nagle, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities. “It is a national priority that this process should move forward as quickly as possible, given the funding and the policy questions at hand.”
Supporters of quick authorization are stressing the boost to the nation’s economy that would be provided by an increase in federal spending on transportation infrastructure.
“Any delay in the reauthorization will hinder the planning of transportation projects,” said Jacob Hay, spokesman for the Laborers’ International Union of North America. When projects can not be planned, jobs get cut. That would be devastating news for construction workers who are already experiencing 19.2 percent unemployment. … Ignoring the problem will not make it go away and waiting to fix it will only make it worse and more expensive.”
The draft bill approved by the subcommittee is available at transportation.house.gov. AASHTO’s authorization campaign website “Are We There Yet?” is available at AreWeThereYet.transportation.org.
Lucas Wall can be reached at lwall@aashto.org or 202-624-3626
