DALLAS — Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has announced that she will introduce a multiyear transportation reauthorization bill on Thursday.
Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, made the announcement on Wednesday. The committee is expected to begin hearings next week on the bill, which is expected to be a six-year extension of the current two-year law — Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century -- that keeps highway and transit funding at MAP-21 levels of approximately $55 billion a year plus inflation.
Map-21 expires on Sept. 30, at the end of fiscal 2014.
Meanwhile, a House Appropriations Committee panel on Wednesday approved transportation appropriations legislation that would slash the popular Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery competitive grant program to $100 million in fiscal 2015, which will begin on Oct 1.
That proposed amount would be down $500 million from fiscal 2014 and $1.15 billion less than requested for fiscal 2015 by President Obama in his $302 billion, four-year transportation funding legislative proposal. The president is seeking a total of $5 billion for the TIGER program over five years.
Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, chairman of the committee's transportation, housing and urban development, and related agencies subcommittee, said the legislation approved by the panel will be presented to the full appropriations committee during the week of May 19.
"This is a sound, common-sense bill that meets our highest transportation and housing priorities in a fiscally responsible way," Latham said after the subcommittee approved the 156-page bill by voice vote.
The bill includes $40.25 billion for highway projects from the Highway Trust Fund, but no general fund revenues as has been the case since 2008. This amount would be equal to the fiscal 2014 level, according to the panel.
The subcommittee bill would provide $10.5 billion to the Federal Transit Administration, $253 million below the fiscal 2014 enacted level, but would include $8.6 billion for transit formula grants in line with the previous fiscal year amount.
Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., the top Democrat on the subcommittee, criticized the bill's $253 million cut to the FTA's capital investment programs and $200 million reduction in Amtrak capital grants to $50 million.
Overall, the bill would provide $17.1 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Transportation Department for fiscal 2015, $727.3 million below the fiscal year 2014 enacted level and $5.8 billion less than the president's request.
President Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2015 had requested $91 billion in discretionary and mandatory spending by Department of Transportation, up from $76.6 billion in 2014.
The president's budget request had also asked for $48.6 billion for highway projects and $22.3 billion in transit funding, up $10 billion from 2014.
Transportation infrastructure spending over the next four years in the Obama plan would include $199.2 billion for highways and $72.3 billion for public transit.
Also on Wednesday, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, urged Congress to find a bipartisan path to pass a long-term highway funding bill before MAP-21 expires.
"If we don't act by Oct. 1 and the funds run out, states won't be reimbursed by the Highway Trust Fund for highway and bridge projects," Brown said in a conference call with reporters. "It would be like the federal government saying to the states, 'You're on your own.' We've never done that before."
"We don't need another two-year stopgap plan," he said. "Short-term extensions create uncertainties, which delay projects and add to the costs."
The federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents a gallon is no longer enough to match expenditures from the Highway Trust Fund for highway and transit projects, Brown said. MAP-21 was funded with almost $20 billion of general fund collections in addition to the gasoline tax revenues.
"We've got to build a bipartisan consensus on replenishing the Highway Trust Fund," he said. "Whether it is closing tax loopholes or an increase in the gasoline tax or a variety of other revenue sources that are on the table, if it is not bipartisan it is not going to pass."
