DALLAS — Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., on Thursday said she expects the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be able to vote on a six-year transportation bill next month.
Boxer, who chairs the committee, said she and ranking minority member Sen. David Vitter, R-La., have agreed to begin work on a six-year funding measure to replace the current two-year Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century funding law that expires on Sept. 30.
"My goal, along with Sen. Vitter, is to move swiftly this spring to pass a long-term reauthorization bill in the EPW Committee that provides six years of funding certainty," she said, during a hearing on MAP-21. "In April, we're marking up this bill."
Boxer cited this week's open letter from 31 state chambers of commerce urging lawmakers to restore the Highway Trust Fund to fiscal health and prevent insolvency and a halt in highway and transit projects.
"This is unprecedented in all my years in Congress," said Boxer, who was elected to the Senate in 1992 after 10 years in the House of Representatives. "We've got a job to do, and we've got to get it done. We've got to get the Highway Trust Fund on solid ground for the next five or six years."
The Environment and Public Works Committee will develop the framework of a funding bill, but the Senate Finance Committee must determine how to pay for it, she said, adding she's been holding discussions with that committee's chairman, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and its top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch, from Utah.
The $105 billion MAP-21 transferred $19 billion from the general fund to the HTF, as revenues from the federal gasoline tax cannot keep up with expenditures. The gasoline tax generates about $32 billion a year.
The estimate by the Transportation Department that the HTF may be insolvent before the beginning of fiscal 2015 underscores the need for urgency in reauthorizing MAP-21, Boxer said.
"We have a looming crisis before us," she said. "Congress must ensure the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. Make no mistake: We are running out of time for action."
States are already cutting back on highway and transit projects planned for this spring because of the uncertainty over reimbursements from the HTF this summer, she said, adding, "This trend will only continue to get worse as we get closer to insolvency."
Rhode Island is one of the states curtailing projects until the HTF situation is resolved, Michael Lewis, director of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, told committee members.
"The uncertainty of whether federal funding will be provided in fiscal 2015 has forced Rhode Island to virtually stop advertising of all new highway projects," Lewis said. "Only emergency projects and projects with funding from prior years are being implemented until federal funding beyond fiscal 2014 is assured."
Rhode Island's $240 million a year highway improvement program includes $200 million from the HTF, Lewis said.
"There is no state-funded highway improvement program in Rhode Island," he said. "Rhode Island's highway improvement program is totally dependent upon federal highway funding."
A new surface transportation bill must be supported by a sustainable, transparent HTF, Vitter said.
"We must restore trust back in the Highway Trust Fund," he said. "We need to be able to show where taxpayer's dollars are going and where future investment may be utilized on a project-by-project level."
