DALLAS — Congress ensured federal transportation dollars will keep flowing through mid-2015 with the Senate's acceptance Thursday night of the House's plan for an $11 billion short-term bailout of the Highway Trust Fund.
The 81 -13 vote to approve the 10-month bailout that keeps the Highway Trust Fund solvent through May 31, 2015. The vote came after the House earlier in the day rejected the Senate's proposal for five-month extension with a Dec. 19 deadline.
The House voted, 272-150, to substitute the highway bailout it approved on July 15 for the Senate's counter-proposal plan adopted on July 29. The House vote followed the Congressional Budget Office's conclusion that a drafting error in the Senate bill would leave it more than $2 billion short of the $8.2 billion needed to keep the highway fund functional through the end of the year.
President Obama is expected to sign the bill Friday. Without the short-term extension, federal reimbursements to states for transportation projects would be cut 28% beginning Aug. 1 and delayed due to a low cash balance in the highway fund.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the Senate had no choice but to go along with the House bailout plan in H.R. 5021 because lawmakers were set to leave town Friday for a five-week August recess.
"The only viable solution is for the Senate to take up the House bill and pass it," Hatch said during Thursday night's debate. "We don't have any other options if we want to get this done before the recess."
Proponents of the early deadline said it would have required Congress to adopt a long-term transportation bill during a post-election lame duck session.
Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., sponsor of the House plan, and other proponents of the May 2015 extension said the extra months would give lawmakers time to consider how to fund federal transportation spending. Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the committee will hold hearings later this year on proposals to raise additional revenues, including a higher gasoline tax and tolls.
Revenues from the federal gasoline and diesel taxes lag almost $20 billion a year below expenditures in the two-year transportation bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who co-sponsored the amendments that set the December deadline and removed pension smoothing from the revenue offset mix in the Senate plan, said the House bill will make passage of a long-term solution more difficult.
"It's so unfortunate the House walked away from the work we did," she said on the Senate floor. "And it's really sad because what we wanted to do was to take care of this problem this year, in this Congress, on our watch — not kick the can down the road."
Despite her concerns, Boxer voted for the House proposal in hopes of getting a multi-year bill as soon as possible.
"We all know that we really can't walk away from the Highway Trust Fund, we can't let it stagger and fall," she said. "Millions of jobs and thousands of businesses depend on it."
Peter Ruane, president of American Road & Transportation Builders Association, said Congress should focus on developing a long-term funding solution this year despite the longer extension. Without some source of new revenue, he said, another round of short-term extension can be expected next May.
"It is incumbent on the Congress to now focus full-bore on the end zone-enacting a long-term, sustainable revenue solution for the Highway Trust Fund before the end of this year," Ruane said.
"That will allow the Congress to then focus on developing and passing a long-term surface transportation program reauthorization bill before the eight-month May extension deadline that was just set expires," Ruane said. "There is no reason why a funding solution needs to wait for a reauthorization bill."
Passage of a short-term fix is a relief but no reason for celebration, said Brian McGuire, president of Associated Equipment Dealers.
"By waiting until the last minute to solve a problem we've known for years was coming, Congress brought the highway program and the construction industry to the brink of disaster," McGuire said. "The Highway Trust Fund is in dire shape and needs additional revenues, be it from a gas tax increase or some other source."
