DALLAS/WASHINGTON — The House Ways and Means Committee plans to vote on a bill Thursday that would transfer almost $11 billion to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent through May 31, 2015.
The committee announced the vote and released a draft of the bill Tuesday night. Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich. said the proposals have received strong bipartisan and bicameral support in the past and that, while they won't be sufficient to take the HTF through the end of next year, they will give the tax-writing committees and Congress "ample time to consider a more long-term solution."
The Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014, H.R. 5021, would transfer almost $10 billion to the HTF — $6.4 billion from corporate pension smoothing and $3.5 billion from customs user fees. Roughly $7.77 billion of this amount would go to the highway account and $2 billion would go the mass transit account.
In addition, the bill would transfer $1 billion of gas tax-funded money from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund to the HTF's highway account. Camp pointed out that Senate Finance Committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. previously proposed such a transfer, though it would have been only $750 million.
Camp said that a funding package that would fix the HTF through the end of next year would have required Congress "to make much tougher decisions — something that sadly Washington does not appear capable of doing at this time."
"What troubles me most about a Dec. 31, 2014 date are those using it as a ploy to stick the American people with a massive increase in the gas tax," Camp said, adding, "So I am seeking the reasonable middle ground of the end of May 2015."
He urged the House and Senate pass this legislation quickly to steer clear of "another crisis showdown."
The Senate Finance Committee is also expected to take up legislation this week to extend the HTF's solvency, according to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the ranking Republican on the panel. But it may differ from Camp's proposed bill, transportation experts said.
Committee aides met daily with House Ways and Means Committee staff over the Independence Day holiday to work out a bipartisan approach to providing the $8 billion needed to keep the fund functioning for six months, Hatch said Monday.
Hatch said the finance committee will probably reconvene Thursday to consider a possible compromise solution. But no session was scheduled as of late Tuesday, a committee spokesman said.
The committee recessed June 26th without voting on a proposal by Wyden that would raise the needed cash through enhanced collections of existing taxes and fees, as well as a $750 million transfer from a fund established to deal with leaking underground gasoline storage tanks.
After the postponement of a vote to allow discussion of the initial proposed bailout with Camp, Wyden said he expected the finance committee would meet again early this week on his proposal.
Camp said June 25 that Wyden's proposed tax increases would not pass the House.
"I am looking at policies that have a history of bicameral, bipartisan support, and I intend to have the Ways and Means Committee ready to act early in July," Camp said.
Meanwhile, three Democratic senators, including two members of the finance committee and one who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, said Congress has until Aug. 1 to approve a temporary bailout that would restore the solvency of the shrinking Highway Trust Fund for another six months.
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. said in a conference call with reporters on Monday that states will begin to feel the effects of an insolvent Highway Trust Fund in only a few weeks.
"It is a necessity for the economy of this country, for our infrastructure, and for everything else, to come to an agreement before the trust fund runs out," said Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the finance committee.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx last week cautioned state transportation officials about a slowdown and curtailment of federal reimbursements next month if the HTF balance hits $4 billion as expected in late July. Reimbursements will be made twice a month rather than daily, Foxx said, and states on average should expect a 28% reduction in federal highway and transit funding.
The six-month patch sought by Wyden would give Congress time to agree on a long-term solution to the structural imbalance in the fund, Schumer said.
"Our purpose is to urge both sides to come together, to get this done in the short term and then we can try to work on a longer term plan later," he said.
Federal fuels taxes dedicated to the highway fund bring in some $35 billion a year, but expenditures top $50 billion a year in the current two-year transportation bill that expires Sept. 30.
Schumer said Wyden and Camp have made progress on the short-term bailout plan, but so far there is no agreement on a solution.
"We are not there yet, but there is an agreement that we should try to get this done before Aug. 1," he said.
Whitehouse, who sits on the budget committee, , compared the potential cutback of funding to the two-week government shutdown over a budget dispute in October 2013.
"Here we go again," Whitehouse said during the conference call. "We lived through the government shutdown. Now we're headed to a transportation shutdown."
