House Passes Transportation Appropriations Bill for FY16

On June 9, the House passed the $55.3 billion Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) spending bill for FY16. The THUD bill provides funding for transportation and housing programs and passed by a narrow margin of 216 to 210. The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee and could be taken up as early as this week. The THUD bill marks the fifth spending bill to pass out of the House and keeps the current spending caps under the budget law (PL 112-25). The passage of this bill highlights Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart’s leadership since becoming chairman of the Appropriations THUD Subcommittee this year. Chairman Diaz-Balart negotiated with the Republicans to vote in favor of the current spending levels while the Heritage Action for America group urged members to vote against the measure in order to stay in line with reduced government spending. After the bill passed, the President announced that he will veto it because funding levels are much too low and also because of some of the policy riders included in the bill.

 

More importantly though, the bill contains key provisions dealing with commercial motor vehicle (CMV) regulations. Included in the bill were provisions to extend last year’s suspension of the hours of service 34-hour restart rule and to block the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s rulemaking to increase insurance requirements for CMVs, which would include ready mixed concrete trucks. NRMCA requested the THUD Subcommittee include the insurance requirements provision to prevent any finalization of an onerous rule that aims to increase CMV insurance by an arbitrary figure and needlessly drive up costs on CMV industries and with no increase in safety on our nation’s roadways. Passing a THUD bill that includes this  provision to suspend the rulemaking marks another victory for NRMCA.