House Transportation And Infrastructure Committee Approves Highway Bill

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Last month, The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a bipartisan bill to spend up to $325 billion on transportation projects over the next six years while Congress scrambled to prevent a loss of infrastructure spending at the end of October. The measure, titled the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 (STRR), would spend $261 billion on highways, $55 billion on transit, and approximately $9 billion on safety programs — but only if Congress can come up with a way to pay for the final three years.

The committee pushed the process forward ahead of an October 29 deadline for renewing federal transportation funding. Supporters of the measure said the committee vote is the first step toward Congress passing a long-term highway bill for the first time in ten years.

Republicans in the House have been facing pressure to pass a multiyear highway bill since they rejected an infrastructure funding measure that was approved by Senate this summer. They balked at that bill, in part, because it contained six years' worth of transportation commitments but only three years' worth of funding.

By contrast, the highway bill that was approved by the House Transportation Committee would require lawmakers to pass new legislation to "unlock" additional funding after the initial three years, instead of guaranteeing it in advance. Both chambers' highway bills would maintain the federal government's current spending level of about $50 billion per year for transportation projects, adjusted for inflation. To reach that level of spending, however, Congress will have to come up with approximately $16 billion per year to supplement revenue from the federal gas tax. 

Congress has been struggling for years to come up with a way to pay for a long-term extension. The traditional source for transportation funding is revenue collected by the federal gas tax, which is currently set at 18.4 cents per gallon. Congress has turned to other areas of the federal budget to close the gap, and lawmakers on the Transportation Committee have said that the Ways and Means Committee will have to identify a set of offsets for the new highway bill before it can move forward.

Transportation advocates complain that Congress has not passed an infrastructure measure that lasts longer than two years since 2005. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated it will take about $100 billion, in addition to the annual gas tax revenue, to pay for a six-year transportation funding bill, which is the length being sought by the Obama administration and transportation supporters.

More information on this topic can be found in this issue's Legislative section.

 

 

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