House Moves to Start Consideration of FY16 Transportation-HUD Bill

Tonight, at 7 p.m. the House is expected to start consideration of the FY16 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill (HR 2577). We expect a marathon markup that will extend into the early morning hours as this bill has an “open” amendment process that doesn’t restrict the number of amendments eligible for consideration. The House Republicans expect to finalize markup and pass this bill before the end of the day tomorrow.

This bill makes several severe cuts to critical transportation and infrastructure programs and investments. Specifically, this bill would:

• Cut $200 million for FTA’s New and Small Starts capital investment grant programs.
• Slashes the TIGER program by 80 percent to just $100 million.
• Cut Amtrak’s budget by $250 million.

Please contact your House Representative this evening or early tomorrow and let them know what local projects are at stake of being put back on the shelf if Congress can’t adequately fund these important transportation programs this year.

As you will recall this bill provides $55.3 billion in discretionary budget authority for FY16, which is $1.5 billion (2.8%) above FY15 levels but $9.7 billion below the President’s request. Nearly all of the increase in funds for FY16 is used to offset drops in Federal Housing Administration receipts, leading to proposed cuts elsewhere.

The House Republicans have developed the FY16 Transportation-HUD spending bill based on their budget resolution’s adherence to sequester level discretionary spending caps for FY 2016, established in the Budget Control Act of 2011. The two-year Ryan-Murray Bipartisan Budget Agreement that replaced much of the sequester’s cuts to defense and non-defense funding expired at the end of FY15, which limits funding for the regular appropriations process to $1,016.6 billion for FY 2016, a funding increase of just 0.29%.

It is our hope that Congress can agree to a new budget that eases the sequestration levels and provides a greater transportation funding by the end of the fiscal year, but there are no guarantees.

If you want to send an email to your representative, you can do that here through our form here.

If you want to have even more impact, pick up the phone (you can find the number on the form page above), and urge your member not to support a bill that cuts TIGER, New Starts, and passenger rail at a time when they’re needed more than ever. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate in calling Joe McAndrew, T4A’s Policy Director at joe.mcandrew@t4america.org or 202-725-6627.

FY16 House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Analysis

 * Administration’s FY16 budget request included Amtrak operating and capital accounts in a proposed “Current Passenger Rail Service” program.