With a couple of days to spare, U.S. House and Senate negotiators have finally reached a compromise on a five-year federal transportation bill. If approved by the full Congress, the $281 billion bill approved this week by a conference committee will be the first in a decade to provide transportation funding for a more than two-year period and will end a string of 36 short-term funding patches put in place since 2009. The current patch expires Friday, at which time federal transportation funding would end.
Government and transportation officials nationwide are watching closely, hoping there will be no roadblocks to final passage of the bill. For years, state and local officials have been reluctant to initiate federal-funding-assisted, multi-million-dollar transportation projects for fear of federal funding running out before the projects were completed. That scenario would either have shifted the debt associated with project completion to the local and state entities or would have halted the projects altogether. As a result, the nation’s transportation infrastructure has suffered.
The negotiated bill would spend more than $200 billion on highways and $48 billion on transit projects over the five-year period. Yet it remains far short of the estimated $400 billion federal officials predict would be needed over a six-year period to mitigate further traffic congestion nationwide.
One of the key Senate negotiators, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, said she was both proud and relieved after the negotiated bill was approved in conference committee. She admitted the bill is not perfect, but added, “It is a major accomplishment for our people who expect us to fund a top-notch transportation system.”
“The funding levels still concern me, and they still should concern Congress,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx during a recent speaking engagement. “Transportation is not an extravagance; it is an investment like paying for college or putting away retirement savings.” He added that if those investment levels are increased, they should be increased by enough that the difference can be seen and felt.
During the first year following passage of the negotiated bill, federal spending on highways nationwide would increase by $2.1 billion over current levels. By 2020, the final year of the bill, spending would be $6.1 billion more than the $50 billion spent on transportation in recent years.
Transit, too, will benefit from the bill. That sector will see spending increase from $8.6 billion to almost $10.6 billion in 2020. The bill also includes increased funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects and funding for installation of positive train control, a safety feature to prevent collisions and derailments on the nation’s railroads. It also includes a provision to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through 2019. A number of vehicle safety measures are also included.
Funding for the new bill will come from gas tax revenues as well as about $70 billion from a variety of monies that will be shifted from other areas of the budget.
Boxer and other key backers of the bill – Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Reps. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania and Peter DeFazio of Oregon – issued a joint statement after the compromise on the bill was announced. “This legislation is a vital investment in our country,” they said in the statement. “A safe, efficient surface transportation network is fundamentally necessary to our quality of life and our economy, and this conference report provides long-term certainty for states and local governments, and good reforms and improvements to the programs that sustain our roads, bridges, transit, and passenger rail system.”