The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved legislation yesterday that would restore $4.4 billion of the $8.5 billion the Bush administration proposed cutting from highway construction funds in fiscal 2003, which starts Oct. 1.
The measure, introduced in February by committee chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, and ranking member James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., would lift federal funding for highways to at least $27.7 billion from the $23.3 billion proposed in Bush's fiscal 2003 budget. But even with the added $4.4 billion, funding levels for highways next year would still be below the $31.8 billion provided in the current fiscal year.
Before approving the bill, which has 320 cosponsors, the committee adopted an amendment to uphold, in 2003, a provision that ties highway funding levels to the stream of gasoline tax revenues coming into the highway trust fund. The provision, known as Revenue Aligned Budget Authority, or RABA, also stipulates that highway trust-fund money may only be spent on highway and transit projects -- a device designed to keep the funds under the control of the Transportation Committee.
Though the provision was upheld by the committee, it is actually responsible for the $8.5 billion cut in highway funding and has become a controversial issue in Congress. Under the provision, the Treasury every year estimates what the tax revenues should be for the upcoming fiscal year.
For fiscal 2003, the most recent estimates were much lower than original estimates, which brought down the guaranteed funding levels under the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century and led the administration to propose the $8.5 billion cut.
A competing measure, introduced in March by Appropriations Committee chairman C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla., would also restore highway funding to $27.7 billion, but would scrap the RABA provision in fiscal 2003. The legislation highlights a rift between the Transportation Committee and the Appropriations Committee over RABA, which prevents the Appropriations Committee from controlling how the trust fund money is used.
Members of the Transportation Committee worried aloud that if they let the Appropriations Committee cut RABA for a year, then they will have to justify whether it was necessary at all.
"Although the appropriators may support the restoration of highway funding, this method of doing so is unacceptable to this committee because it establishes the precedent for ending the RABA concept," Young said. "The principle that highway spending should equal highway revenues is the cornerstone of TEA-21. We must not let the appropriators repeal RABA even for one year."
While the legislation doesn't specify where the additional $4.4 billion must come from, the bill's authors maintain that the money ought to come from the highway trust fund.
"We have the funds available to restore cuts to the highway program since the cash balance in the highway trust fund is currently about $20 billion," said Rep. Thomas E. Petri, R-Wis., chairman of the Transportation Committee's highways and transit subcommittee. "By law, this money can only be used for highway and transit programs."
The Transportation Committee felt it had to act yesterday because the Appropriations Committee is expected to attach its bill to the fiscal 2003 supplemental appropriations legislation, which could be marked up as early as next week.
