U.S. DEPARTMENT of TRANSPORTATION FY2018 APPROPRIATIONS BILL SUMMARY

As introduced on July 10, 2017

Late on July 10, the House Appropriations subcommittee released a draft bill to fund transportation and housing programs for fiscal year (FY) 2018. The bill would appropriate $56.5 billion in discretionary spending, which is $1.1 billion below FY 2017. USDOT would receive $17.8 billion in discretionary FY2018 funding, a $646 million decrease from FY2017. The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to markup the draft bill on Monday, July 17.

The full text of the draft bill can be found here. A summary of the appropriations bill can be found on the House Appropriations Committee page here.

BACKGROUND

Congress must take action on addressing the budget caps enforced through the Budget Control Act (BCA), which passed into law in 2011. The Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has hinted that the Treasury Department could run out of room to borrow under the current debt limit as early as September. While Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has not given an estimate of exactly when the Treasury was most likely to hit the debt limit, October or November is likely.

Despite the absence of a budget deal, the House Appropriations Committee has come out with interim 302(b) allocations, which set the spending level for each appropriations subcommittee. Under this document, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) subcommittee has a FY 2018 funding cap of $56.5 billion, a $1.1 billion decrease from FY 2017 funding level. See interim sub-allocations document here.

TIGER

The House FY2018 bill eliminates funding for the TIGER program. In past appropriations, the House has also used this same strategy – zero out the program and rely on the Senate to maintain funding for TIGER. Then when they conference the House and Senate bills into one bill, the House pushes the Senate to cut funding from another program in order to maintain TIGER funding.

It is unclear the extent to which the Senate will continue to carry the weight of supporting the program moving forward.

New Starts, Small Starts, Core Capacity (Capital Investment Grant Program)

The House bill allocates $1.75 billion to the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program, which is a 27 percent cut from, or $660 million less than, the FY 2017 funding level of $2.4 billion. It is also $549 million less that the authorized level for the program in the FAST Act. Of this, $1.008 billion is set-aside for New Starts projects that have full funding grant agreements (FFGAs), $145.7 million for Core Capacity projects, and $182 million for Small Starts.

Of the remaining CIG funding, $400 million would fund “joint Amtrak-public transit projects.” This language provides a clue that the Subcommittee intends the funding to go to the Gateway project, a rail improvement project in the Northeast Corridor. With all this funding dedicated to Gateway, there would be no remaining funding would be available for any of the CIG projects that anticipate getting an FFGA signed in 2018 or late 2017.

While the House leaders included language directing the USDOT Secretary to “continue to administer the Capital Investment Grant Program in accordance with the procedural and substantive requirements of” the law, the lack of funding available to do that would effectively prevent projects from moving forward until at least 2019.

Amtrak, CRISI, State of Good Repair, and REG

The FY2018 draft bill provides $1.4 billion for Amtrak. Of this, $1.1 billion is for the National Network, which is consistent with the FAST Act authorized amount, and $328 million for the Northeast Corridor (NEC), which is a decrease from the $515 million authorized amount in the FAST Act.

The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program is funded at $25 million, a decrease from the $230 million authorized under the FAST Act and less than half of the $68 million that the program received in FY 2017.

The draft bill does not provide funding for the Restoration and Enhancement Grants (REG) program, which authorized at $20 million under the FAST Act.

The FY2018 bill provides $500 million for Federal State Partnership State of Good Repair grants, significantly above the $175 million authorized for FY 2018. In spending this funding, the bill directs USDOT to “first give preference to eligible projects for which the environmental impact statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act and design work is already complete at the time of the grant application review, or to projects that address major critical assets which have conditions that pose a substantial risk now or in the future to the reliability of train service.” This language indicates that funding would be directed to the Gateway’s Portal North Bridge and Hudson River Tunnel projects. Overall, the Gateway project could receive $900 million in grant funding under the bill – about one sixth of the $5.4 billion in discretionary appropriations for non-aviation programs.

Analysis

The House draft THUD appropriations bill does not have as drastic funding cuts as those proposed by the Administration (see T4America summary of the Administration’s FY 2018 budget proposal here). However, it still represents significant cuts from current funding levels and would have far-reaching impacts for communities’ transportation and housing programs.

On July 11, the House Appropriations THUD Subcommittee held a short mark-up and passed the draft bill without any amendments. The bill is scheduled for consideration by the full House Appropriations Committee on July 17 and may move forward to the House floor. However, Congress is not expected to complete any of the FY 2018 appropriation bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1. T4America encourages communities to reach out to their representatives to ensure funding is maintained for the key programs your community relies on.