DALLAS – The Senate Appropriations Committee acted swiftly and unanimously in approving a fiscal 2017 budget for the Transportation Department that includes more than $56 billion provided by the recently enacted five-year highway bill.
The budget, approved Thursday by a 30-0 vote with no debate, would distribute $44 billion for highways and $12.3 billion to public transit from the Highway Trust Fund in the federal fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
The allocations from the HTF are consistent with the $305 billion Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (PL 114-94) approved by Congress and signed into law in early December. The FAST Act provides $225.2 billion for highway programs and $50.7 billion for transit through fiscal 2020.
The $16.7 billion of discretionary transportation funding in the appropriations bill approved by the committee is $1.7 billion less than in fiscal 2016 and $2.5 billion less than requested by President Obama in his proposed budget for fiscal 2017.
The appropriations bill ignores Obama's plan to change some of the transportation funding that is now discretionary to make the spending mandatory, which Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called a "gimmick."
"This bipartisan bill makes important investments in our nation's infrastructure, helps meet the housing needs of the most vulnerable among us, and provides funding for economic development projects that create jobs in our communities," said Collins, who is chairman of the committee's panel on transportation.
The subcommittee unanimously approved the fiscal 2017 spending plan on Tuesday.
The measure includes $525 million for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery competitive grant program, up from $500 million in fiscal 2016. 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.
Collins was skeptical at a March hearing on President Obama's proposed $98.1 billion transportation budget for fiscal 2017, which included $17.9 billion for a clean and green transportation initiative funded by a $10.25 per barrel tax on crude oil.
"I am perplexed why the administration waited to put forth this plan now when Congress debated and passed a multi-year transportation reauthorization, which the president signed into law, just three months ago," she told Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx at the March hearing.
The Senate's appropriations measure provides $16.4 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration in 2017, an increase of $131.6 million from fiscal 2016 and $512.5 million more in Obama's proposed budget.
The appropriations bill does not include the increase sought by Obama in the federal passenger facility charge of $4.50 that many airports use to support revenue bonds that finance terminal and other infrastructure projects. The president's budget would have raised the PFC maximum to $8 per trip segment and reduced FAA airport capital grants.
The Senate passed a two-year, $33 billion reauthorization measure (H.R. 636) for the FAA earlier this week. The Senate bill does not include a privatization of the national air traffic control system that is a major initiative in the six-year, $69 billion FAA reauthorization measure, the Aviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization Act (H.R. 4441), which was adopted by the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee in early February.
Neither of the two FAA bills includes an increase in the PFC.
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House committee, said the Senate's FAA bill is flawed.
"We will take a look at the completed product, but in the House, we will continue to push forward with the AIRR Act," he said. "Transformational air traffic control reform is absolutely necessary to end the unacceptable status quo at the FAA and to ensure the future of America's aviation system."
The current FAA authorization will expire July 15.
