DALLAS — Senate Republican leaders are working on a multiyear transportation bill that would resolve the shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund by dedicating roughly $40 billion of additional revenue to it from a variety of sources.
The bill is expected to be longer than the five-month extension passed by the House last week, but shorter than a six-year bill pending in the Senate. But lawmakers are already threatening to add unrelated controversial amendments to it that would threaten its passage.
The measure approved by the House last week would extend HTF solvency through Dec. 18, with an $8.1 billion transfer of general revenues to the HTF. Paying for the extension would bring the total general fund transfers into the HTF to more than $73 billion since 2008.
The Senate is expected to take up a six-year transportation reauthorization bill on Wednesday that provides $277 billion for state highway and bridge projects following a procedural vote on Tuesday to limit debate time on the measure. The bill, S. 1647, was adopted unanimously by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in late June but does not include transit funding or additional revenues needed to support federal gasoline and diesel taxes dedicated to the HTF.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said last week that the length of the Senate bill would depend on the value of the revenue offsets that could be agreed on.
Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said a bill spanning three years "would be good, four would be better."
Proposals in the Senate's offset package include $17 billion from a reduction to 1.5% from the current 6% in the annual dividend paid by the Federal Reserve Bank on the capital that its 2,900 member institutions must provide to it. Other options include $10 billion from a sale of crude oil stashed in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and $32 billion by lowering guaranteed returns in a savings plan for retired federal employees.
Without congressional action in the next two weeks, the Transportation Department's spending authority will expire and the cash balance in the HTF will hit a low threshold triggering a slowdown or even a cutoff of federal highway funds on Aug. 1.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said when the highway bill comes up in the Senate she would offer an amendment to revive the Export-Import Bank, which expired June 30. Cantwell said the bank provides the capital that U.S. companies need to compete in the global market.
However, House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the Senate should pass the House proposal without the Export-Import Bank provision, which could threaten its passage.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is an avowed opponent of the bank and has said he would try to torpedo any legislation that would renew its charter.
"The best advice I can give to the Senate [is] to pass a clean highway bill and move it to the president," McCarthy said July 16.
A tax reform proposal that would fund transportation with a tax on repatriated corporate foreign earnings may be offered as an amendment. This proposal is in pending legislation sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Environment and Public Work Committee, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2016.
However, Paul said late last week he would "use all legislative vehicles at his disposal" to demand a Senate vote on de-funding Planned Parenthood, which could delay action on a highway bill.
The group receives $500 million per year in taxpayer funding, he said.
"Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned Parenthood and I intend to make that goal a reality," Paul said.
The Congressional Budget Office's latest assessment of the HTF said it would take a $3 billion transfer to keep the fund functional at current spending levels through the end of fiscal 2015 on Sept. 30 and then $11 billion to $22 billion per year of general revenues through 2025.
