DALLAS -- The House is working its way through 81 amendments filed for a $325 billion transportation funding bill on Wednesday after the Rules Committee rejected several proposals that would have raised additional revenue to cover a structural shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.
Consideration of the amendments is expected to keep the House in session until late night as leaders hope to take a final vote Thursday on the multiyear highway bill.
The House intends to swap most of the language in the six-year, $360 billion DRIVE Act (H.R. 22) passed by the Senate in late July with the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 (H.R. 3763) adopted last month by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The revised DRIVE Act would retain $38 billion of the revenue offsets in the Senate bill that supplement the gasoline tax and other HTF-dedicated levies to fully fund only the first three years of transportation proposal.
The House Rules Committee voted Tuesday night to move 81 amendments to the House floor after considering more than 300 of them. Lawmakers have 10 minutes to debate each amendment.
The committee declined to include several proposals aimed at resolving the $15 billion per year structural shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.
Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., wanted to dedicate 20% of the government's royalties from oil and gas production on federal lands to the HTF, and Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., proposed a one-time, mandatory 14% tax on overseas earnings by U.S. corporations that he said would bring in $238 billion over six years.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., failed to gain a floor vote on his amendment that would have raised the federal gasoline and diesel taxes by 15 cents per gallon from the current 18.4 cents and 24.4 cents, respectively.
The rejection was a missed opportunity to resolve the revenue shortfall and provide additional billions each year for surface transportation projects, he said.
"Congress should have the opportunity to show the courage and vision to do what Ronald Reagan did in 1982 and what seven Republican states have already done this year -- raise the gas tax to provide stable and meaningful funding for transportation," Blumenauer said. "I'm deeply disappointed that we are considering what alleges to be a six-year authorization without a real conversation about paying for it."
The panel also did not advance an amendment that would have established a joint House-Senate committee to study HTF revenue solutions. The proposal by Reps. James Renacci, R-Ohio, Reid Ribble, R-Wis., Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., and Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., would have set a 2018 deadline for Congress to resolve the HTF shortfall or the gasoline tax rate would be set by the Treasury secretary at a level sufficient to fully fund transportation programs through 2025.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the Transportation Committee, on Wednesday criticized the lack of a revenue amendment in the Rules Committee's package.
"Why can't we have a simple vote on revenue?" he said in a floor speech. "Why is the committee so opposed to allowing any attempt by the House to fund this bill?"
Supporters of a higher gasoline tax include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AAA, freight associations, and labor unions, DeFazio said.
"We are virtually being begged by interest groups to do something," DeFazio said.
The Rules Committee also declined to advance a potentially controversial amendment by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., that would have removed some Dodd-Frank restrictions on banks with more than $50 billion in assets.
The House will consider a non-binding amendment from Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., that would put Congress on record as favoring an end to the federal gasoline tax and turning most federal transportation authority to the states.
The House disposed of 45 amendments to the transportation bill on Tuesday, approving 26 of them, rejecting 11, and delaying action on four. Several amendments were offered and then withdrawn by sponsors before a vote.
The Rules Committee also declined to advance a potentially controversial amendment by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., that would have removed some Dodd-Frank restrictions on banks with more than $50 billion in assets.
