DALLAS – A House appropriations panel unanimously adopted a fiscal 2017 transportation budget measure on Wednesday that mostly dovetails with a bill adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee last month while providing billions of dollars less than sought by President Obama.
The House Appropriation Committee's transportation subcommittee's $58.2 billion appropriations bill would provide $1.7 billion more overall for transportation and housing programs than the Senate Appropriation Committee's $56.5 billion measure (S 2844).
Both congressional measures provide the fiscal 2017 highway and transit funding mandated by the recently enacted, five-year Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (PL 114-94).
The House appropriations measure allocates $44 billion of federal funding for highways in fiscal 2017, an increase of $905 million from fiscal 2016.
Transit funding of $12.5 billion in fiscal 2017 would be $743 million more than in 2016 but $7.4 billion less than in Obama's proposed budget. The total includes $9.7 billion in formula grants to transit agencies, $1.2 billion of New Starts capital investment grants and $408 million for state and local Small Starts projects that get underway in fiscal 2017.
No funding is provided for high-speed rail in the budget proposal.
"This bill provides for our nation's transportation, while making tough choices to protect hard-earned taxpayer dollars," said subcommittee chairman Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.
The House committee's bill includes $19.2 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Transportation Department in fiscal year 2017, $540 million more than in 2016.
Obama's budget proposal would have moved $4.3 billion of spending that was discretionary in fiscal 2016 to the mandatory category in fiscal 2017 while increasing mandatory transportation spending by a total of $7.4 billion.
The Senate is expected to vote this week on the 2017 appropriations bill adopted unanimously by its appropriations committee in April.
The Office of Management and Budget said in a policy statement released Monday that the president likely would veto the transportation appropriations bill if Congress adopts amendments that add "problematic ideological provisions that are beyond the scope of the funding legislation."
The OMB criticized the Senate measure for its lack of support for Obama's 10-year, $300 billion clean transportation plan that would be funded by a $10.25 per barrel tax on crude oil.
"The administration is disappointed that the bill does not support the president's vision for a 21st Century Clean Transportation Plan that expands transportation options for American families while reducing carbon emissions, cutting oil consumption, and creating new jobs," OMB said. "The administration urges the Congress to consider strategic opportunities to enhance revenue and investments to support a new, clean, sustainable transportation system and increase the competitiveness and productivity of the economy."
The House panel's measure would cut 2017's Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery competitive grant program to $450 million from 2016's $500 million.
The Senate committee's fiscal 2017 transportation appropriations measure would increase TIGER funding to $525 million. Obama asked for an increase in the grant program to $1.25 billion in 2017.
The stimulus-era TIGER program is not included in the FAST Act and must be renewed annually. TIGER grants have totaled $4.6 billion since 2009, when the program began with an allocation of $1.5 billion.
"Demand for TIGER has been overwhelming, with over $134 billion requested in more than 6,700 applications to date," OMB said in its policy statement.
The Obama administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2017, which was submitted to Congress in early February, included $73 billion for transportation, an increase of almost 40% over the $53.4 billion allocated in fiscal 2016. Almost $18 billion of the increase would fund the green transportation initiative, while infrastructure spending would go up by 5.7%, to $55.1 billion in fiscal 2017 from $52.4 billion last year.
