DALLAS — The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a $51 billion transportation spending measure for fiscal 2015, as a subcommittee chair warned about the pending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund.
"If Congress does not act, a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund will put at risk the resources we've included in this bill," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairman of the appropriation committee's transportation subcommittee.
"We need immediate action to resolve this crisis, well before October when the new fiscal year begins," she said. "We can't wait. I am hopeful Congress will work together to avoid that unnecessary and preventable crisis."
The Transportation Department will curtail or delay reimbursements to states for work already completed if the highway portion of the trust fund dips below $4 billion of cash reserves, she said. There is a similar trigger for the transit account at $1 billion.
"This could happen as early as July," said Murray. "We are headed for a crisis. States are bracing for a worst-case scenario, with some states like Arkansas already backing away from new projects."
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she is concerned that unless Congress resolves the funding problem before the August recess, payments to state transportation departments will be delayed and work will "grind to a halt" on new construction projects.
"We must work cooperatively with the administration to develop and pass an achievable plan to avoid that result," Collins said.
The committee's chair, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said the measure that funds the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development departments will be debated in the Senate during the week of June 16, along with other funding bills.
Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee, which is responsible for finding the funds, met behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss ways to resolve the highway funding problem, according to its chair, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Congress has transferred a total of $58 billion to the highway fund from general revenues since 2008 due to slow growth in revenues from the gasoline tax.
"We're pulling out all the stops to find a funding solution to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent, and today's bipartisan members meeting to discuss options was a critical step forward," he said.
Wyden predicted that a long-term, bipartisan transportation funding bill that resolves the Highway Trust Fund situation will be approved by the finance committee by the end of June.
"I've now asked committee members to come back by early next week with their preferences," Wyden said. "As I said ... failure is not an option."
The Senate committee's bill avoids the cuts to transit projects and transportation grants programs that were in the bill adopted by a House panel in May, Murray said.
The appropriations bill provides $40.3 billion of federal highway funding in 2015, the same as in fiscal 2014, and $11.1 billion for transit funding, an increase of $310 million. It includes $3.5 billion for airport grants through the Federal Aviation Administration.
The House panel's version reduced transit spending to $10.5 billion next year, a cut of $253 million from 2014. The House bill also slashed the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program to $100 million from $600 million in 2014. The Senate version provides $550 million of TIGER grants in 2015, while President Obama has asked Congress to double TIGER funding to $1.25 billion.
