By Kevin McCarty
February 13, 2012

More than two years after the federal surface transportation law first expired, Congressional leaders are shifting their full attention to renewing this law, with the full Senate and House scheduled to debate their respective proposals (S. 1813 and H.R. 7) during the week of February 13.

Efforts to advance final legislation this year received a big boost following a Congressional agreement breaking a longstanding impasse, clearing the way for renewal of the nation’s aviation law. After nearly two dozen extensions and one shutdown, the Senate approved the “FAA Modernization and Reform Act” (HR 658) February 6 on a 75-20 vote, sending a final aviation bill to the President for his signature. On February 3, the House passed the measure 248–169, which authorizes programs and activities of the Federal Aviation Administration through Fiscal Year 2015, including authorizing Airport Improvements Program (AIP) grants at a $3.35 billion annual level.

This momentum will soon be tested, as the House and Senate both prepare for floor action on their competing surface transportation renewal plans. While each chamber proposes spending about the same amount of money on a yearly basis, their leaders have taken distinctly different paths in renewing this federal law that is likely to direct more than $50 billion annually in investment in highways, transit and safety.

The nation’s mayors, led by Conference of Mayors President Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa have been urging Congress to develop a bipartisan agreement in renewing the nation’s surface transportation law, with than 100 hundred mayors conveying this message to House and Senate leaders.

Senate transportation leaders, for their part, have consistently sought bipartisan consensus in developing elements of their two-year renewal plan, with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee unanimously approving their respective titles on highway and public transportation programs. Even the always divisive issue of revenue raisers for the bill garnered a 17–6 majority within the Senate Finance Committee.

Reflective of its broad, bipartisan commitment to its renewal process, the Senate on February 9 voted 85–11 to proceed with consideration of S. 1813, far exceeding the required 60-vote margin. The Senate will entertain all amendments to S. 1813 in an open amendment process during Senate floor action, ensuring that a broad range of issues and concerns of Senators are debated and considered.

The Senate legislation preserves a number of current law programs and activities, and also incorporates new initiatives, such as expanded commitments to innovative financing, notably increased funding for the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). A significantly expanded TIFIA program has been championed by Villaraiogosa and the Conference of Mayors, and is included in both the Senate and House bills.

S. 1813 also includes a number of provisions that increase flexibility and funding options for states seeking to improve freight networks and goods movement, supporting maritime, freight rail and freight intermodal connectivity.

At the same time, S. 1813 proposes numerous program consolidations, eliminating the Bridge Program (including its directed funding to large system bridges as well as local bridges), Safe Routes to School, Recreational Trails Program, Rural Safety Initiative and the separate Transportation Enhancements Program. S. 1813 also reduces the funding share committed to metropolitan areas and local areas under the Surface Transportation Program (renamed the Transportation Mobility Program), and provides less flexibility to local areas under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program (CMAQ) by directing how CMAQ funds are expended locally.

Notably, what the Senate bill doesn’t do is break the longstanding Trust Fund commitment to funding both highway and transit programs, ensuring that both modes are considered and addressed in tandem, not separately as the House bill proposes.

In the House, its leaders pursued a partisan path in developing and approving a surface transportation renewal plan (H.R. 7), relying on its majority to push through a five-year authorization package and doing so on an expedited schedule.

While the pending Senate legislation has generated only modest opposition, the House bill has precipitated a furor over its proposal renewal plan, fracturing the bipartisan tradition that has so defined prior Congressional action on transportation legislation, especially highway/transit legislation.

The Administration, for its part, has been very vocal in its opposition to the House bill, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood calling H.R. 7 “the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service.”

Generating the most opposition is a committee-approved plan that removes all transit funding and some highway funding (e.g., CMAQ program) from the Trust Fund, leaving these programs to fend for themselves in the growing battle over how future General Fund revenues are allocated. Reversal of this 30-year policy commitment to public transportation was unveiled with only a few days notice, leaving local areas, local leaders and others little time to review and register their opposition. This longstanding commitment to an 80/20 highway/transit split of Trust Fund revenues was originally championed by the Conference of Mayors, transit leaders and others, beginning in the 1970s.

The practical effect of the House bill is to assign the entire revenue shortfall – about $40 billion over the life of the 5-year bill – to public transportation and CMAQ funding. As such, both public transit and CMAQ are now unfunded under the House bill. This anticipated revenue shortfall was to be funded originally with revenues from increased oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, but a recent Congressional Budget Office report indicates that recently-approved committee provisions would generate about five percent of the funds needed. Importantly, the CMAQ program directs federal transportation resources to help local areas comply with certain federal Clean Air standards, with local officials citing its assured funding as helping to fund this mandate.

The House bill, similarly, adopted many of the programmatic elements of the Senate bill regarding program consolidations and eliminations, including outright elimination of the Transportation Enhancements as well as the Bridge Program, a similar reduction in the local share of funding under the STP program, among other provisions. In contrast with the Senate bill’s streamlining of environmental processes and planning, the House bill goes futher in environmental safeguards found in current law.

After amendments, the Senate is expected to clear its renewal plan overwhelmingly on a strong bipartisan vote. In the House, H.R. 7, if it wins a majority, will rely on a mostly partisan vote.