DALLAS -- House Republican leaders are putting together an $8 billion bailout of the Highway Trust Fund that would keep it solvent through the end of 2015 to avoid a summer shutdown of state highway and transit projects.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said another short-term extension of the HTF will be needed to keep federal transportation funds flowing to states through Dec. 31 and provide time for lawmakers to reach consensus on a revenue source for a multiyear highway bill.
This would be the 34th short-term extension of the HTF in the past six years, according to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
Ryan's remarks followed a warning by Foxx last week that he might recommend President Obama veto another short-term fix for the HTF.
The Transportation Department has warned states that reimbursements from the HTF for transportation infrastructure projects would be delayed or curtailed in August without an extension of the current two-month HTF patch, which expires July 31.
"Our goal in the House is to get a six-year highway bill," Ryan said on Friday. "We're not going to be able to do that in two weeks, so we're going to have to have a patch. We anticipate moving on a patch as soon as possible."
Ryan was confident that the $8 billion needed to keep the HTF solvent over the next five months would be found but did not list any specific revenue measures.
"I think we'll be able to put together a package [with] that kind of innocuous, boring stuff that shouldn't be a surprise to people," he said. "We'll produce that very soon and it will be done in a way I think that can easily get bipartisan support."
The federal gasoline tax and other levies dedicated to the HTF bring in about $40 billion per year, but expenditures is fiscal 2015 will total almost $54 billion. Since 2008, Congress has transferred more than $63 billion from the general fund to the HTF to make up the shortfall.
The 10-month extension approved by Congress in July 2014 required an $11 billion transfer, including $1 billion from a defunct fund for repairing leaking oil storage tanks and $6.3 billion from corporate pension smoothing over 10 years. A general fund transfer was not needed for the current short-term fix.
"The way we tax American companies doing business overseas is killing American jobs," he said. "If only to protect the tax base to reform later, we think this is necessary."
Ryan said he would try to find common ground for Republicans and Democrats to agree on some form of international tax repatriation
"It's my goal and [I] hope to do it, but it's not a done deal, that's for sure," he said. "We think we should do a long-term highway bill and we think tax reform is the best way."
The Senate this week will work on a multiyear transportation infrastructure bill under a tentative schedule from majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will consider the safety portion of a six-year highway bill on Tuesday. The proposal includes an extension of the popular Transportation Infrastructure Grants and Economic Reinvestment Act discretionary grants program.
The highway funding portion of a multiyear bill was adopted last month by the Environment and Public Works Committee with the six-year DRIVE Act transportation funding measure that would provide $277.4 billion for highway projects.
Senate Democrats prefer a multiyear transportation bill funded with President Obama's mandatory tax on overseas corporate earnings rather than a voluntary repatriation plan, said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
"Our position is we want a long-term bill and the pay-for is the president's proposal," Wyden said.
