House Committee Approves Fiscal 2017 Transportation Bill

texas-interchange-construction-texdot-357.jpg

DALLAS -- The House Appropriations Committee approved a fiscal 2017 transportation measure by voice vote on Tuesday that would increase highway funding by $900 million and public transit funding by $350 million from 2016 levels.

The House panel's appropriations bill includes federal funding of $43.3 billion for highways and $9.7 billion for transit as provided for in 2017 by the five-year, $305 billion Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.

The Senate approved a similar fiscal 2017 transportation appropriation bill last week by an 89-to-8 vote.

The House committee's bill would allocate $2.5 billion for transit capital grants, up from $2.18 billion in fiscal 2016 and $17 million more than in the Senate measure. The Senate' version incorporates the FAST Act's $2.35 billion of the grants.

Both measures include $3.35 billion in 2017 for an airport infrastructure improvement grant program overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The House panel bill would cut the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery competitive grant program to $450 million in 2017 while the Senate version would provide $525 million for TIGER grants. The program was funded at $500 million in fiscal 2016.

President Obama's proposed $73 billion transportation budget would have increased TIGER funding to $1.25 billion in fiscal 2017.

The president's proposal also adhered to FAST Act's highway and transit funding levels, but sought $17.8 billion in 2017 for a clean and green transportation effort funded by a new tax on crude oil of $10.25 per barrel.

The House committee's bill does not include the Senate's provision that would rescind $2.2 billion of states' unobligated transportation contracted authority from previous funding bills. The Senate proposal is in addition to the FAST Act's $7.6 billion rescission at the end of fiscal 2020.

The differences between the two bills will be reconciled in a conference committee after the House adopts a 2017 transportation appropriations measure. The House may consider the bill later this week, a committee spokesman said. The House and Senate are expected to be out Memorial Day week.

The committee rejected an amendment by Rep. Nita Lowey, R-N.Y., to add the $1.9 billion sought by President Obama for the fight against the spread of the Zika virus, which has been blamed for birth defects.

Hundreds of pregnant women have been exposed the mosquito-borne virus in the U.S., said Lowey, the senior Democrat on the committee.

"It will only get worse," she said.

Committee chairman Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said the Obama administration should fund the anti-Zika fight with $2 billion of unspent money set aside last year to count the Ebola threat.

"There's plenty of money available to fight this disease if the administration gets with it," Rogers said.

The House last week allocated $622 million from the leftover Ebola funding for the immediate effort against Zika in the remaining months of fiscal 2016, he said.

"We're as concerned as anyone," Rogers said. "We want to provide the resources needed to protect our people."

The committee also rejected an amendment from Rep. David Price, D-N.C., to strip several policy provisions from the bill, including mandated rest periods for interstate truckers.

Price said he supports the transportation appropriations bill but criticized its total funding as inadequate.

"We are maintaining our core and maybe adding some, but it's not good enough," Price said. "We can never make the type of investments we need in this country until we acquire the political will to make tough choices."

The committee completed its work on a majority of the 2017 appropriations bills with passage of the transportation measure, Rogers said.

"We're crossing the halfway point and I hope we can keep up this pace," he said.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Infrastructure Transportation industry Washington
MORE FROM BOND BUYER