This week, while conferees were attempting to reauthorize federal transportation programs, the House Appropriations Committee approved funding for transportation programs for FY 2013.
The House and Senate are moving closer to a deal on the highway and bridge portions of the surface transportation reauthorization bill.聽 This afternoon, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) issued a joint statement saying, 鈥渢he conferees have moved forward a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on a highway reauthorization bill.鈥
House and Senate Committee staffs continue to discuss proposals and exchange language on a variety of issues as part of the conference committee negotiations to develop a compromise transportation reauthorization bill with the hope of getting a bill completed by the June 30 deadline. The majority of discussions have focused on project delivery and environmental streamlining reforms.
Today, the House of Representatives will vote on a Motion to Instruct conferees to slash FY 2013 funding on the surface transportation reauthorization bill.聽 The Motion to Instruct was offered by Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) and would limit funding in FY 2013 to $37.5 for federal highway and transit programs.聽 A Motion to Instruct is non-binding and, if it is adopted, it simply asks House conferees to take a certain negotiating position.聽
Speaker Boehner Hints at 6-Month Extension
Negotiations between the House and Senate over their separate versions of a transportation authorization bill accelerated somewhat this week when Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), together with Ranking Committee Republican Jim Inhofe (Okla.), personally delivered an offer of compromise language on provisions to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.). The 鈥渙ffer鈥 was received by the House as a positive gesture. Chairman Mica said the House conferees would begin making "sequential counteroffers" today.
Today, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation approved the FY 2013 transportation spending bill, which included funding for the federal-aid highway program at $39.1 billion 鈥 the same level as FY 2012. The Senate approved its version of the appropriations bill last month, which provided the same level of funding as the House.
Rep. Paul Broun (R- Ga.) has threatened to bring a motion to the House floor as early as tonight, which would instruct House conferees to insist on limiting total "funding out of the Highway Trust Fund" in FY 2012 and 2013 to the revenue from gas tax receipts that the Congressional Budget Office currently projects will be deposited in the Trust Fund. Under the motion, total funding in 2012 and 2013 would be about twenty-five percent below current levels.
House and Senate staff continue to meet to negotiate various provisions in the transportation reauthorization legislation. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is serving as the chair of the conference committee, set June 7, 2012 as the target date for having a compromise measure completed.
As 51风流 reported last week, the House and Senate began official negotiations to reconcile their differences on a bill that will reauthorize federal highway and transit programs.聽 Members of the conference committee have not met formally as a group since their meeting last week but conferees and their staff has been working behind the scenes.
On May 8, the House and Senate conferees held their first public hearing.聽 The hearing consisted almost solely of opening statements from the 47 members of Congress serving on the conference committee.聽 The committee is being chaired by Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and they are charged with working out the differences between H.R. 4348, a 90-day extension of the current surface transportation authorization that includes environmental streamlining provisions, approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and other provisions with the Senate鈥檚 two-year $109 billion comprehensive bill, MAP-21.