Congress Passes Major Transportation Bill

After nearly two months of negotiations, House and Senate conferees reached an agreement on a new transportation reauthorization bill to allow federal investment in the nation’s roadways, transit systems, and biking and pedestrian infrastructure. The joint legislation was approved on June 29 , the day after its release, by a 373-52 vote in the House and a 74-19 vote in the Senate. The bill is expected to be signed into law by June 30, when the latest extension of current legislation is set to expire.

The new bill authorizes $120 billion in transportation spending through September 2014 and extends collection of the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gasoline tax through September 2016. The agreement comes nearly seven years after approval of the previous transportation bill, which had been extended nine times since it originally expired almost three years ago.

Offsets in the bill will temporarily improve the financial solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, which was projected to go broke by early next year due to the declining purchasing power of the gas tax, which has not been raised in nearly 20 years. Long-term funding options for transportation programs were not considered.

The final agreement in many ways resembles the bipartisan transportation bill that passed the Senate in March by a 74-22 vote . The final bill maintains highway and public transportation funding at current levels, consolidates federal highway programs, contains no earmarks, and greatly expands the TIFIA loan program for additional project support. Many positive provisions from the Senate bill, however, were not part of the final agreement. These include funding reserved for infrastructure repair, operating assistance for transit systems, restoration of parity between parking and transit commuter benefits, and the establishment of a national freight program.

Unlike the Senate, the House was not able to pass a comprehensive transportation bill, and had instead moved to conference with a short extension of existing policy with a handful of amendments. House Republicans were nonetheless able to secure elements of their original proposal in the final agreement, including significant rollbacks of environmental reviews for transportation projects. They were also able to weaken biking and pedestrian funding beyond the compromise in the Senate bill, including elimination of the Safe Routes to School program and additional flexibility to move the funds to other priorities. As part of the compromise, House Republicans dropped their demands to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and loosen regulations on coal ash.

Many groups, including EESI, are working to determine the full impact of the agreement. Further analysis will be available soon.