Appropriations Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Transportation For America

[VIDEO] The future of federal passenger rail funding

After months of talk about investing in infrastructure, one of President Trump’s first acts on infrastructure was to propose eliminating funding for several crucial transportation programs, including long-distance passenger rail. We convened a small panel of experts to explain about the impacts on passenger rail and what interested advocates and local leaders need to know.

Did you miss the session? You can catch up with the full discussion here:

When the current short-term appropriations bill runs out near the end of April 2017, Congress will be debating passenger rail funding levels for next year as well as the remainder of FY 2017. Here are few things that interested advocates should know and do:

FIND STATIONS IN YOUR AREA THAT WOULD BE AFFECTED

We’ve posted a detailed table online that lists all the stations that would be immediately affected by eliminating long-distance passenger rail service, crosswalked with House districts. Find the station(s) in your district and include that information in any letters or phone calls to your representatives.

GET UP TO SPEED ON THE ISSUE

Equip yourself with these short talking points on passenger rail and the threats posed to it in the federal budget.

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES

Beyond just cuts to passenger rail, the Administration’s proposed budget falls short of prioritizing investment in the local communities that are the basic building block of the national economy, and we need you to help stand up and send that message loud and clear to Congress.

Take Action

WATCH OUR GULF COAST VIDEO

As mentioned on the webinar, we produced a short video about the amazing groundswell of bottom-up, grassroots support in cities and towns all along the Gulf Coast for restoring passenger rail service from Louisiana to Florida. Watch that and share it here.

162 organizations and local business and elected leaders from 30 states urge Congress to support TIGER & public transit funding

162 organizations, including elected state/local officials and chambers of commerce, sent a letter to House and Senate appropriators today urging Congress to continue investing in smart projects to move goods, move people and support the local economies that our nation’s prosperity is built on.

The letter, signed by 19 local elected officials, 9 state legislators, 9 chambers of commerce and over 120 other organizations, urges those currently assembling the federal transportation budget for the rest of 2017 and 2018 to prioritize funding for both TIGER competitive grants and Transit Capital Investment Grants — programs that have been targeted for outright elimination in President Trump’s budget requests for 2017 and beyond.

The majority of all federal transportation dollars are awarded to states and metro areas by relatively simple formulas that ensure everyone gets a share, regardless of how they’re going to spend those dollars or how well-conceived their projects are. Yet, through the TIGER grant program, the federal government has found a smart way to use a small amount of money (about $500 million annually since 2009) to incentivize the best projects possible. This fiercely competitive program is one of the few ways that local communities of almost any size can directly receive federal dollars for their priority transportation projects. Projects vying for funding compete against each other on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible and through the first seven rounds, each TIGER dollar has brought 3.5 non-federal dollars to the table.

The Transit Capital Investment Grants program supports metro areas of all sizes investing their own money in building or expanding transit service. While making the case for eliminating the program, the Trump Administration recently stated that “localities should fund these localized projects,” but local voters and leaders are doing that already, putting their own skin in the game to meet the growing demand for well-connected locations served by transit. At the ballot box last November alone, voters approved more than $200 billion dollars in tax increases to invest in these projects. But they’re counting on the federal government to continue supporting these bottom-up efforts, as they’ve done for decades.

Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Seattle, Kansas City, Minneapolis and a plethora of other towns and cities have already raised their own money to invest in building new transit service. Eliminating this program will threaten their economic prospects and their ability to satisfy the booming demand from residents and employers alike for well-connected locations served by transit.

Here’s the full text of the letter:

Dear Chairmen Cochran, Frelinghuysen, Collins, and Diaz-Balart and Ranking Members Leahy, Lowey, Reed, and Price:

As you prepare the omnibus Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 appropriations bill and the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill for FY2018, we write to respectfully request that you fund the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program at or above FY16 level of $500 million and that you fully fund the Transit Capital Investment Grants program at the FAST Act authorization level of $2.3 billion.

Local and regional governments generate nearly three quarters of U.S. gross domestic product, represent two- thirds of the nation’s population, and account for 95 percent of all public transportation passenger miles traveled. Yet, our local jurisdictions receive less than 10% of the federal highway program’s funding.

The incredibly popular TIGER grant program is one of the only ways that local communities can apply for and secure funds from the federal government for priority transportation projects. The TIGER competition spurs innovation, leverages federal funding far greater than what’s available through formula programs, and awards funding to projects that provide a high-return on investment.

Year after year, the demand for TIGER far exceeds the amount of funding available. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) received 627 applications requesting more than $10.1 billion in funding, which was 20 times the amount available. Since its creation in 2009, TIGER has made critical investments in multimodal projects in every state in the nation, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Likewise, the transit Capital Investment Grants program (i.e. New Starts, Small Starts, Core Capacity) is the federal government’s primary resource for supporting locally-planned, major transit capital investments. The program has facilitated the creation of new or extended public transportation systems across the country.

Under this program, FTA awards grants on a competitive basis for large projects that cannot traditionally be funded from a transit agency’s annual formula funds, such as new fixed guideway systems, including heavy rail (subway), light rail, streetcars, or bus rapid transit. Projects are encouraged to leverage public-private-partnerships (P3) to participate in a streamlined grant process. Recognizing the importance of this program, Congress increased its authorization by $400 million in the FAST Act.

Both the TIGER and Capital Investment Grants programs complement DOT’s traditional formula-based programs. Both programs provide unique, cost-effective, and innovative solutions that leverage private, state, and local investment to solve complex transportation opportunities and spur economic development.

While we are writing today about the TIGER and CIG programs in particular, we also want to make clear that these programs should not be paid for by significant cuts in other essential discretionary domestic programs. The Trump administration’s budget proposal falls short in prioritizing investment in the local communities that are the basic building block of our national economy. We urge Congress to uphold its promise to the American people and reinvest in our nation’s communities.

Thank you for considering these critical programs, which invest in our nation’s infrastructure, create jobs for American workers, and boost our regional economies.

Sincerely,

See the full letter (pdf) for the full list of organizations and officials that signed the letter.

President Trump’s federal infrastructure priorities likely to be revealed this week

There’s no need to wait months for President Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure package to discover the transportation priorities of this president — they’ll be clearly telegraphed with the release of his first annual budget later this week.

For months there’s been endless discussion of the President’s $1 trillion pledge to “build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.” And while industry groups scramble to divvy up funding or financing from a package that may or may not materialize, President Trump’s first real infrastructure effort should be considered his annual budget request with top-line numbers for transportation spending, which will tell us much about his priorities.

When the first look at that budget comes later this week, we’ll likely face the dissonance of a President rallying support for a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure at the same time he’s proposing billions in cuts to transportation investment to accompany his plan to increase defense spending by $54 billion.

While trade groups, members of Congress and local advocates are discussing what projects they want to include in this dream of a huge infrastructure package that may or may not come up later this year, they could see devastating cuts proposed for crucial transportation programs that fund smart transportation projects all across the country in less than 48 hours.

Melanie Zanona wrote about this inconsistency in The Hill today, noting that “the optics of slashing federal transportation funds in his budget proposal while pushing for a separate financing package underscores Trump’s challenge of balancing his promises of massive infrastructure investment and dramatic cuts in government spending.”

While many people — even staffers or elected reps on Capitol Hill — tend to think transportation spending decisions are determined by the long-term transportation bill that gets passed every few years, the money for new transit and rail projects still has to be appropriated by Congress each year through the budget process.

This is an important point.

To get a big infrastructure package passed by Congress, the president will need the full coalition of transportation stakeholders, from those seeking funds for roads, to transit, rail and ports. But if there are cuts in the budget made to discretionary spending (i.e., programs not paid out of the highway trust fund), those cuts would fall disproportionately on funding for new transit construction (New and Small Starts) and multimodal and local priority projects (TIGER) — amongst other programs. Targeting parts of the infrastructure coalition with this budget now is a good way to make sure you have no coalition when you need it later.

President Trump had a meeting at the White House last week with some key transportation, real estate and infrastructure advisors about his priorities. Real estate developer Richard LeFrak talked to CNBC about what he heard in the meeting:

“One thing [Trump] said while we were in the meeting, he said ‘don’t bring me any projects that you want federal funding for that you can’t start and had completed the state approval processes,'” LeFrak said.

That’s because “‘most of these projects come from the state, in 90 to 100 days. If they’re not ready in 120 days, tell them to go back, get finished, and bring it back,’ [Trump said]. In other words, he’s not going to … devote the resources to things that he can’t implement immediately,” he added.

Of course, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that “shovel-ready” isn’t always the best qualifier to identify the best projects. Following 2009’s stimulus effort, we learned that many shovel-ready projects weren’t under construction for a reason, and many were just mothballed projects that had been sitting on a shelf for the last 20 years because they simply never merited moving forward.

Ed Mortimer from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce echoed that point while testifying alongside our Beth Osborne before a Senate Committee last week. Any new infrastructure package, he said, “should not be a replication of the Recovery Act [which focused entirely on shovel-ready projects.] Projects need to be selected to deliver long-term economic growth, not the speed at which they can be constructed.”

But not all shovel-ready projects are created equal, either.

Scores of local communities with well-conceived ready-to-go multimodal projects are eager to apply to the incredibly competitive TIGER grant program, and on average, winning TIGER projects brought at least three state or local dollars to the table for each federal dollar sought. There are transit projects all across the country that have already raised local or state funding and are literally just waiting on a check for capital dollars from the federal government to proceed, including “projects like Indianapolis’ Red Line bus rapid transit project which has already been promised more than $70 million in federal dollars to pair with nearly $20 million in local funds from an income tax increase that Indianapolis voters approved back in November at the ballot box,” as we noted last week.

USDOT has already promised over $6 billion to these shovel-ready transit construction projects that have local funding in hand and are ready to go. If this week’s budget does indeed cut (or even eliminate funding outright) for the New & Small Starts transit program which exists explicitly to help metro areas of all sizes build new transit systems, the projects in that pipeline could be immediately threatened, as will their promises of supporting economic development & improved mobility.

When any president starts talking about a big new investment in transportation, it’s natural for people to get excited — Congress has been begging, borrowing and dealing to keep federal transportation program solvent for the last decade.

But whether or not President Trump finds a way to successfully advance and pay for a massive investment in infrastructure, come hell or high water, there will be a budget for these crucial transportation programs this year. And it will tell us all we need to know about his priorities.

We’ll be breaking down the budget when it’s released and arm you with the information you’ll need to take action and weigh in with your members of Congress. Do you want to get this sort of information directly to your inbox? Sign up for email today.

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Do our federal transportation priorities match the rhetoric we use to justify more spending?

With the Trump administration readying both an annual budget and discussing a possible large infrastructure package, Transportation for America yesterday urged a key Senate subcommittee to protect the investments in programs that promote innovation, encourage collaboration and maximize benefits for local communities.

Photo via WSDOT/Flickr httpswww.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/8670279118

The President’s first budget will almost certainly propose big cuts to discretionary spending programs. While the bulk of annual federal transportation spending is sourced from the highway trust fund and should be more insulated from these cuts, discretionary cuts would fall disproportionately on funding for new transit construction (New and Small Starts) and multimodal and local priority projects (TIGER).

House and Senate appropriators will have two decisions to make: a) whether to appropriate the amounts prescribed by the current long-term transportation law (the FAST Act) for the core programs, which is uncertain as well, and, b) how much to allocate for these other discretionary transportation programs.

As expected, with the heads of a few national trade groups also testifying yesterday alongside T4America before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, there was the usual rhetoric about America’s “crumbling” infrastructure amidst calls to invest more money overall in the federal transportation program.

And while T4America agrees on the need for greater levels of overall investment, T4A senior policy advisor Beth Osborne (pictured above) differentiated our overall position.

“As everyone testifying today will say,” she noted in her opening remarks, “we have great need to invest in our transportation system, including our roads, bridges, and transit systems. However, Transportation for America also believes that our problems run far deeper than just an overall lack of funding.”

When we have these discussions about the need to invest in infrastructure — especially in Washington — all sorts of ominous numbers are thrown around. Tens of thousands of deficient bridges. Pavement condition that’s worsening by the day. Backlogs of neglected maintenance and repair.

But where does the money go once we increase transportation spending and dole it all out to the states? Beth Osborne explained:

In fact, while we talk about the need for more funding to address our crumbling infrastructure, that is not necessarily where the funding goes. A 2014 report conducted by Smart Growth America called “Repair Priorities” found that between 2009 and 2011 states collectively spent $20.4 billion annually to build new roadways and add lanes. During that same time, states spent just $16.5 billion annually repairing and preserving the existing system, even while roads across the country were deteriorating. As we talk about large infrastructure packages, it’s only fair to ask that the priorities of our transportation program more closely match the rhetoric we use to justify more spending on it.

Why do we keep spending hefty sums on new roads and new lanes while repair backlogs get ignored? One reason is that transportation and development decisions are rarely well coordinated and we end up trying to address bad land use decisions with more transportation spending, and vice versa.

After years of trying to slash funding, the House proposes solid funding for next round of TIGER grants

After several years of consistently trying to cut or outright eliminate the program’s funding entirely, House appropriators last week approved $450 million for competitive TIGER grants within the annual budget bill for all transportation and housing programs.

Perhaps the House got the message delivered back in March?

Over 170 elected officials and local, civic and business leaders from 45 U.S. states today sent a letter to congressional appropriators urging them to provide at least $500 million for another round of TIGER competitive transportation grants as well as the full amount authorized in last year’s FAST Act for new transit construction. As Congress begins to craft the transportation budget for the 2017 fiscal year, the 170-plus local leaders of all stripes, representing an incredible diversity of places, sent a powerful message that opportunities provided by TIGER and FTA’s New Starts program are crucial to their long-term success.

While they fell short of the mark set in this year’s Senate spending bill of $525 million, the House seems to be coming around on TIGER, which is terrific news.

Overall, the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill would provide $19.2 billion for the discretionary programs that include TIGER grants, New Starts transit construction and Amtrak, which on the whole, represents an increase of $540 million compared to the current year. Though it would provide $75 million less than the Senate’s funding level for TIGER grants, at $450 million, it represents a big change from just three years ago when the proposed House THUD bill contained zero funding for TIGER. And at least once, the House tried to restrict TIGER funding only to highway projects, leaving the huge number of smart multimodal projects that normally apply out in the cold.

The New Starts transit construction program would receive a significant boost at $2.5 billion total, which is $160 million more than what’s called for by the FAST Act and $320 million more than last year.

What’s the TIGER program?

Unlike the overwhelming majority of all federal transportation dollars that are awarded via formulas to ensure that all states or metro areas get a share, regardless of how they’re going to spend those dollars, the federal government has found a smart way to use a small amount of money to incentivize the best projects possible through TIGER. Projects vying for funding compete against each other on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible. It’s a roadmap to a more efficient way to spend transportation dollars that spurs innovation, stretches federal transportation dollars further than in conventional formula programs, and awards funding to projects that provide a high-return on investment.

Why isn’t the funding guaranteed by the FAST Act?

TIGER, in addition to Amtrak funding and the program used for almost all new transit expansion, are not guaranteed funding each year from the highway trust fund. Unlike federal highway and transit formula programs, these programs have to go before appropriators in Congress each year who decide how much to give each program, resulting in this same debate nearly every year. (An attempt to provide dedicated annual funding for TIGER in the FAST Act failed during negotiations over that bill.)

While this House budget is indeed good news, just like the Senate’s version passed several weeks ago, it could face a shaky path forward. President Obama issued a veto threat to the Senate bill due to the potential for “problematic ideological provisions” included in the bill, including a Senate provision to relax hours-of-service rules for truckers that the House also includes similar language on.

Though it’s unlikely that the House and Senate will complete this budget bill before the October 1 deadline, as in past years, the content of the House and Senate transportation funding bills are incredibly important. They form the starting point for the debate and will likely be consolidated at some point early in the upcoming fiscal year.

Read more about a policy provision also included in this House budget, which instructs USDOT to begin measuring how transportation investments will connect all Americans to opportunity and essential daily needs such as jobs, schools, healthcare, food and others.

House transportation spending bill takes unprecedented steps to increase access to opportunity for all Americans

Senate transportation appropriations bill adheres to local leaders’ call to fund TIGER, public transit and passenger rail

The annual transportation and housing appropriations bill – known as T-HUD – was approved last week by the Senate Appropriations Committee and contains good news for transportation. The annual spending bill fully funds FAST Act-authorized programs receiving support from the Highway Trust Fund and funds important competitive programs such as TIGER, public transit construction grants, and intercity passenger rail.

Earlier this year, T4America—in partnership with over 170 elected officials and local, civic, and business leaders from 45 states—sent a powerful message to congressional appropriators that the competitive TIGER and New Starts programs are crucial local economic prosperity and competitiveness. The letter urged Congress to include at least $500 million for TIGER transportation grants as well as the full $2.3 billion authorized in last year’s FAST Act for the ‘New Starts’ public transit construction program. Senate appropriators listened and provided $525 million for TIGER and $2.3 billion for New Starts in the FY2017 T-HUD bill.

TIGER

The Senate bill increases funding for the TIGER program by $25 million, for a total of $525 million for FY17, of which $25 million is reserved for planning grants. This is a big win for a couple of reasons.

First, the TIGER competitive grant program is one of the few ways that local communities can apply for and win funds for their priority projects, helping to get smart, locally-supported projects with a high return on investment off the ground. The TIGER competition ensures the best projects receive funds based on merit and cost-benefit analyses, and provides a level of accountability and transparency not currently available in many statewide transportation programs.

Second, TIGER was not even authorized in the five-year FAST Act, making it all the more important that this vital program receive strong support this year.

Public transit

TIGER isn’t the only crucial program up in the air. The federal government’s primary resource for supporting new, locally planned and supported transit expansion projects was up for consideration. The Senate T-HUD bill fully funds the New Starts program in FY17 with $2.3 billion.

Passenger rail

The FAST Act authorized passenger rail programs along with the larger highway and transit authorizations for the first time ever. The Senate T-HUD bill continues support for passenger rail by providing $1.4 billion for Amtrak, and for the first time since 2010, allocating competitive funds for safety, state of good repair for the Northeast Corridor, and operating and capital support for restored or new passenger service throughout the rest of the country. The Senate Appropriations Committee has placed a heavy emphasis on safety and short-line railroads in FY17.

Next Steps

The transportation funding bill now heads to the Senate floor for further consideration, with action likely starting this week. The House has yet to introduce its FY17 T-HUD bill, a measure that could get stalled by disagreement from party leaders over their broader budget blueprint. T4America will continue keeping a close watch as the critical annual FY17 spending bill progresses.

Over 170 local elected, business and civic leaders from 45 states call on Congress to support TIGER & public transit funding

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC — Over 170 elected officials and local, civic and business leaders from 45 U.S. states today sent a letter to congressional appropriators urging them to provide at least $500 million for another round of TIGER competitive transportation grants as well as the full amount authorized in last year’s FAST Act for new transit construction.

As Congress begins to craft the transportation budget for the 2017 fiscal year, the 170-plus local leaders of all stripes, representing an incredible diversity of places, sent a powerful message that opportunities provided by TIGER and FTA’s New Starts program are crucial to their long-term success.

The fiercely competitive TIGER program is one of the few ways that local communities of almost any size can directly receive federal dollars for their priority transportation projects, and represents one of the most fiscally responsible transportation programs administered by USDOT. Unlike the overwhelming majority of all federal transportation dollars that are awarded via formulas to ensure that all states or metro areas get a share, regardless of how they’re going to spend those dollars, the federal government has found a smart way to use a small amount of money to incentivize the best projects possible through TIGER. Projects vying for funding compete against each other on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible and through the first seven rounds, each TIGER dollar has brought in 3.5 non-federal dollars.

It’s a roadmap to a more efficient way to spend transportation dollars that spurs innovation, stretches federal transportation dollars further than in conventional formula programs, and awards funding to projects that provide a high-return on investment. And according to these hundreds of local leaders who know the needs of their communities best, congressional appropriators would be remiss to provide any less than the $500 million it has typically received since its inception in 2009.

The letter also calls on appropriators to fully fund the federal government’s primary resource for supporting new, locally-planned and supported transit expansion projects. The New and Small Starts programs have facilitated the creation of dozens of new or extended public transportation systems across the country, also awarded competitively to the best projects.

Congress already recognized the importance of this program in the FAST Act when they increased its authorization by $400 million for this fiscal year. The 178 signatories on the letter fully expect appropriators to fund the program at it’s fully authorized level of $2.3 billion in the FAST Act, our country’s current transportation law. From the letter:

As you prepare the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, we write to respectfully request that the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program is funded at or above FY16 level of $500 million and that the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grants program is funded at the FAST Act authorization level of $2.3 billion.

Both the TIGER and Capital Investment Grants programs complement DOT’s traditional formula-based programs. Both programs provide unique, cost-effective, and innovative solutions that leverage private, state, and local investment to solve complex transportation and spur economic development.

Read the full letter here with all 174 signatories, including 25 mayors (pdf).

Contact: Stephen Lee Davis
Director of Communications
202-971-3902
steve.davis@t4america.org

Though Congress passed a transportation bill, funding for key programs still up in the air

Though Congress passed a five-year transportation bill back in December, the fate of many important transportation programs will still be decided in Congress’ appropriations process this year. Among them is one of the few ways that local communities can directly receive funding for smart projects.

Tiger Map

The TIGER competitive grant program is one of the few ways that local communities of almost any size can directly receive federal dollars for their priority transportation projects. Unlike the overwhelming majority of all federal transportation dollars that are awarded via formulas to ensure that everyone gets a share, regardless of how they plan to spend it, TIGER projects compete against each other and are selected on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible.

This competition spurs innovation, leverages federal funding by matching it with greater local dollars and awards funding to projects that provide a high return on investment. Choosing projects based on their potential benefits is exactly the direction that transportation spending needs to move in, and we need to ensure that this vital program continues.

Because TIGER was not even authorized in the five-year FAST Act and therefore wholly lacks any certainty of funding, congressional appropriators play an incredibly important role in deciding once again how much funding to provide for TIGER (and other key transportation programs) in the coming year. We want to ensure that the Senate’s key committee begins the process by providing at least the full $500 million they’ve provided in the past.

Members of Congress need to hear from you today. Do you represent a city, county, metro planning organization, or other group? We’re looking for these sorts of groups to sign a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee in support of these programs. (We are not targeting individual letters at this time.)

But TIGER isn’t the only crucial program that appropriators will decide in the coming weeks of 2016. The federal government’s primary resource for supporting new, locally-planned and supported transit expansion projects is also up in the air. The New and Small Starts programs have facilitated the creation of dozens of new or extended public transportation systems across the country, awarded competitively to the best projects.

Sound Transit’s LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. LINK is being expanded by a combination of local funds approved by voters and federal New Starts funds.

Under this program, FTA awards grants on a competitive basis for large projects that cannot traditionally be funded from a transit agency’s annual formula funds. Congress already recognized the importance of this program in the FAST Act when they increased its authorization by $400 million for this fiscal year.

But now we need to ensure that the federal appropriators actually provide that level of funding here in the critical moment.

You may have seen the news of President Obama’s budget being released a few weeks ago, which asked for $1.2 billion more for these transit capital grants compared to what was in the FAST Act. While the President makes a request and Congress actually makes the budget, that list of transit projects included in the President’s budget does show which projects would be in front of the queue if Congress comes through with the money this year or next.

That list included Indianapolis’ ambitious plan for a new north-south bus rapid transit line through the city from the suburbs on one side to the other, an expansion of Seattle’s LINK light rail system that will be supported by new local revenues approved on the ballot late last year, and projects to add new capacity to Chicago’s strapped Red Line.

Both of these critical programs — TIGER and transit grants — provide unique, cost-effective, and innovative solutions that also leverage private, state, and local investment to solve complex transportation and spur economic development.

Do you represent a city, county, metro planning organization, or other local/state group? We’re looking for those groups to sign a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee in support of these programs. Find out more here. (We are not targeting individual letters at this time.)

Help make TIGER roar in this year’s budget

With the multi-year transportation bill is behind us, Congress is currently considering an annual transportation spending bill with $600 million for the competitive TIGER grant program — an increase of $100 million over existing funding amounts. We need to support it this week as Congress finalizes a new budget to carry us into next year.

The incredibly popular TIGER grant program is one of the only ways that local communities like yours can apply for and win funds from the federal government for important priority projects of almost any kind, helping to get the best locally-supported projects with a high return on investment off the ground. Because it was not permanently authorized in the FAST Act, TIGER is subject to budget battles each year, and this year is no different.

Can you urge your representatives in Congress to pass an appropriations bill with the proposed $600 million in TIGER grant funding, in addition to preserving other key transportation programs?

Whether for new multimodal passenger rail stations in Normal and Alton, Illinois to take advantage of improved passenger rail connections between Chicago and St. Louis, an overhaul of the downtown street network in Dubuque, IA to expand the tax base by $77 million, or an improvement to the West Memphis port to boost cargo capacity by 2,000 percent with only a $10.9 million award, the competitive TIGER program ensures the best projects receive funds, and provides a level of accountability and transparency not currently available in many statewide transportation programs.

In just the past few years, the House has proposed to cut TIGER funding entirely or add restrictions so that transit, bike and pedestrian and multimodal projects can’t apply — only highway projects. This year, the Senate is proposing to keep the program unchanged and add $100 million in funding (the most recent round had $500 million), while the House proposed to slash it to just $100 million.

In addition to TIGER funding, we’re supporting more funding for new transit construction and the Senate levels for Amtrak funding. Communities all over the country are clamoring to expand transit and passenger rail service to meet booming demand and it’s not the time to reduce funding for those programs.

We are counting on your vocal support to ensure that Congress protect and preserve funding that local communities count on in this spending bill to keep the government open and functioning past this Friday.

Send a message to your members of Congress today and let them know that these issues matter to you and your community.

Senate pivoting to yearly spending bill that increases TIGER but still cuts transit funds

While many Senate members are focused on the conference committee deliberations on a new long-term transportation bill, the Senate committee that doles out transportation money each year released an updated proposal for this fiscal year, and the news is mixed for several important transportation programs.

Update: While the Senate was expected to consider this bill on the floor Thursday, debate over Syrian refugee issues derailed any further consideration of the bill this week.

featured-thud Most transportation spending comes from the trust fund and the levels are already set (for the most part) by the current authorization — like the long-term transportation bill currently being debated. But important discretionary programs that aren’t “authorized” receive their funding each year from House and Senate appropriators.

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a revised proposal for all transportation and housing programs for the next fiscal year, known as the T-HUD spending bill.

The committee had agreed to an earlier version of the bill this summer, which never made it to the floor. The new bill is a substitute for that earlier bill, and includes higher funding levels as a result of the two-year budget deal passed in late October that increases federal spending by $80 billion total over the next two years.

Though when compared to the first version of the committee’s spending bill from this summer, this bill provides about $3.5 billion more funding for this year (FY 2016 started Oct. 1) and increases competitive TIGER grant funding up to $600 million, it still makes cuts to the sole program that communities across the country depend on to help them build new transit service to meet the booming demand.

Logged in T4America members can see a detailed chart comparing the Senate bill to the House version and 2015 funding levels.

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Senate THUD 2016 comparison chart

*The Senate introduced a substitute FY16 THUD appropriation bill on November 18, 2015, which replaced the Appropriation’s Committee original bill that was agreed to by the Committee on June 25, 2015. The earlier version had lower funding levels for FTA New Starts & Small Starts and TIGER.

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The TIGER competitive grant program is incredibly popular in part because it’s one of the few ways that local communities can apply for and win funds for their priority projects; helping to get smart, locally-supported projects with a high return on investment off the ground. The TIGER competition ensures the best projects receive funds, and provides a level of accountability and transparency not currently available in many statewide transportation programs. While any funds for this vital program are needed and appreciated, the volume of applications for each annual TIGER round shows that the program is underfunded to fulfill the need.

Good news: the new bill proposes no changes to what kinds of projects can apply for TIGER funding, and increases funding for the program by $100 million this year.

The Senate’s initial bill introduced this summer provided $500 million for TIGER — the same amount as the just-ended fiscal year — and the House version of this bill provided far less at $100 million. It’s encouraging to see the Senate appropriators increase funding for this important program in the newest draft proposal, and that there are no changes to what kinds of projects can apply. This is a hopeful sign that for future House-Senate negotiations on the final transportation spending bill for 2016.

The funding for building new transit service — New Starts, Small Starts and Core Capacity — was increased by more than $300 million from this summer’s Senate THUD bill up to $1.9 billion, just $24 million less than the proposed House levels of $1.92 billion. That sounds like good news, but it’s still represents a $200 million cut from last year for this program.

Amtrak funding was unchanged: $289 million for operating and $1.1B for capital projects, which is slightly more ($39 million) than this year.

The Senate was expected to consider this bill Thursday before departing for Thanksgiving vacation today, but it was sidelined by Syrian refugee and ISIS-related debate.

In any case, it’s unclear if this week’s actions on this lone individual spending bill will have any measurable impact on what observers expect to be another omnibus spending bill for all federal agencies upon the members’ return in early December. We’ll keep you posted.

US Senate Transportation Authorization – T4A Update

The US Senate continues to debate the federal surface transportation bill this week, with a series of votes taken last night by the full Senate. Individual senators filed over 200 amendments and T4America continues to track the latest developments on those amendments. We have compiled a brief update on where things stand and provide information on three amendments that we know would spur innovation, access and local control.

**It is rumored that another manager’s amendment package will be offered in the near future. T4A will update this information as needed.

Transportation Funding Timeline Update: Transportation funding expires this Friday and the House announced this morning that they intend to pass a 3-month extension to match the Senate’s; setting up a new October 29 transportation funding deadline.

Last week, Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) introduced what is expected to be the first of potentially two or more manager’s amendment packages. Manager’s packages serve as legislative vehicles to modify a piece of legislation in committee or on the floor, wholesale. This first manager’s package makes a number of changes, including maintaining the historic 80/20 highway and transit funding split; increases funding for the FTA High Intensity/Fixed Guideway State of Good Repair Formula program by $100 million (paid for by cutting TIFIA and the Assistance for Major Projects by $50 million each) and requires 50% of the off-system bridge set-aside funding in the STP program to be used on bridges that are not on the federal-aid highway system.

Last Sunday, the Senate dispatched a couple of non-germane amendments, but voted to allow Senators to vote on whether or not to tie the Ex-Im Bank authorization to the highway authorization. Late last night, the Senate voted and approved that plan (64-39).

Under this new modified manager’s package, T4A believes that it is unlikely that few if any of the 200+ plus amendments filed by Senators will be considered or voted on. However, we do anticipate the introduction of a third manager’s amendment which will reflect additional changes. T4A continues to work to increase local control, innovation and access to jobs and opportunity through three primary amendments. They include the following:

Wicker-Booker STP local control amendment (corresponding fact sheet by USCM on changes to metro level funding)
Murray TIGER authorization amendment
Donnelly Job Access planning amendment (search for S. Amdt 2434, 2435 and 2436; this one is messy, our apologies)

Update: 5 Issues to Watch (for more information, please refer to T4A’s Member post on 7/23/15):

Pay-fors – Since the last post on 7/23/15, a number of items have shifted. A few provisions, considered poison pills, were removed, including the $2.3 billion that came from denying those with felony warrants social security benefits and $1.7 billion that came from rescinding unused funds for TARP’s Hardest Hit Fund. These rescissions leave the authorization with $43.7 billion, all of which are generated outside of the traditional transportation-user fee system. The measure would provide enough additional HTF revenues to provide the first three years of highway and transit investment, but Congress would be required to raise additional resources before October 2018 to be able to fund the final three years of the DRIVE Act’s authorized spending.

Transit funding – Changes in the manager’s package increased the levels of transit funding to be 24% of the authorized levels overall and 24% of any new funding generated annually.

Freight –The DRIVE Act creates a robust freight planning process that directs states to examine efficient goods movement and identify projects needed to improve multimodal freight movement. However, despite instituting a multi-modal freight planning process, the new National Highway Freight Program would require 90% of the funding go to highway-only projects rather than to multimodal projects using a performance-based system. What impact will this have?

Take, for example, the non-highway freight needs in the State of California. Ten percent of California’s funding would be only $9.3 million in 2016, growing to $23 million in 2021. Comparitively, one multimodal project at the Port of Long Beach in California to remove a railroad bottleneck and build more on-dock rail capacity cost the Port $84 million. T4A views this policy as a missed opportunity and not consistent with T4A’s freight policy.

Overall, due to removal of the TARP Hardest Hit Fund, the bill’s overall investment levels needed to be reduced. Under the first manager’s package, the freight program was set to receive $1.5 billion in FY2016 growing to $2 billion in FY2018. The program would now receive $991.5 million in FY2016 and increase to 1.9 billion in Fy2018.

Passenger Rail – No changes to note from the last update on 7/23/15.

Assistance for Major Projects (AMP) – Funding decreased by $50 million per year to increase funds for FTA’s High Intensity/Fixed Guideway State of Good Repair Formula program. AMP would now be authorized at $250 million in FY16 and rise to $400 million in FY2021.

*NEW* TIFIA – The initial manager’s package introduced early last week would cut TIFIA funding from $1 billion to $500 million per year. Removing the TARP Hardest Hit Fund and other payfors required additional cuts, which senate authorizers took out of the TIFIA program. Those cuts, plus the increase to the FTA’s High Intensity/Fixed Guideway State of Good Repair program, result in an overall authorized funding level for TIFIA at just $300 million per year over the life of the bill.

ICYMI: T4A and SGA Host Federal Policy Webinar; Materials Inside

Yesterday, Smart Growth America and Transportation for America hosted a webinar to review congressional action on the federal surface transportation authorization. If you were able to attend, you will recall that we mentioned how the US Senate is poised to consider the authorization before the full Senate next Tuesday. That continues to be the current timeframe for Senate consideration.

Access the webinar powerpoint here.

As a T4A member, you can access the webinar anytime through this page.

Two action items stemming from that conversation include:

It is highly likely that T4A will be issuing a number of action alerts next week. While we don’t have legislative language on a number of potential amendments, we anticipate movement on issues of local control, freight, TAP, transit funding and TIGER. Member support would be greatly appreciated.
The National Complete Streets Coalition is requesting support to tell FHWA to make more inclusive streets that are designed to be more livable. You can register your comments here: bit.ly/NHSdesign (this weblink is case-sensitive).

Congress kicks into high gear on transportation — let’s summarize the action

During an extremely busy week in Congress in several key committees, a long-term transportation bill and a multi-year passenger rail authorization were introduced and passed committees, along with hearings on possible ways to keep our nation’s transportation fund afloat, rural transportation issues, rail safety, and autonomous vehicles.

For those of you who don’t regularly follow Congress, this is often how things go: nothing seems to happen for a long time, and then there’s an explosion of activity all at once. That’s certainly what took place this week in the Senate, with some important ramifications for the future of transportation funding and policy. We hope that Congress shows the same focus when they return from their weeklong July 4th recess.

Four of the five Senate committees with jurisdiction over either transportation policy or funding were active this week. Two notable transportation policy bills (and one yearly spending bill) were advanced out of committees this week, and the Senate made the first big move toward passing a long-term transportation reauthorization ahead of the July 31 expiration of MAP-21, the current law. So what happened, and what should we be expecting next?

Here’s our brief rundown of what you need to know.

First up, in news we haven’t covered here yet, the Senate Appropriations Committee this morning marked up and passed their version of the yearly transportation and housing spending bill that was passed out of the House several weeks ago — a bill that cut TIGER, passenger rail, and transit construction. Unfortunately, the news out of the Senate today was only marginally better. On the plus side, TIGER funding is maintained at this year’s level: $500 million again for competitive grants this upcoming year. But the Senate actually makes deeper cuts to New and Small Starts transit construction than the House did — $520 million in cuts over last year, and $320 million more than the House passed a few weeks ago. Passenger rail funding gets a marginal increase over last year’s level.

While we were hopeful that the Senate could possibly restore some of these cuts made by the House — as had happened in several years past — the consensus by House and Senate Republicans to stick to 2011 budget sequestration-level discretionary funding amounts for all of their FY2016 spending bills result in cuts across the board to discretionary programs like these. All Democrats on the Appropriations Committee opposed this bill.

Smart Growth America offered up this statement on the THUD bill today. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America.

The United States is in the middle of an affordable housing crisis. Rents are rising, the homeownership rate is declining, and federal housing programs are already failing to meet the need for affordable homes. Gutting the HOME program at a time like this is the wrong response. If Congress’s budget caps force this outcome, the budget caps need to be changed.

Logged-in T4America members can read our full THUD summary below:

[member_content]June 24, 2015 — The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (Transportation-HUD) marked up and reported its FY2016 appropriation bill to the full committee on June 23 without amendment. This is T4America’s short members-only summary of the THUD bill as reported to the full committee. Read the full memo.[/member_content]

Second up was the release and the subsequent committee markup of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee’s six-year transportation bill known as the DRIVE Act. The EPW Committee is responsible for the largest portion of the full bill known as the “highway title” — more on the other portions below. In case you missed any of our posts about the EPW bill over the last few days, you can catch up with those below. Long story short? EPW released a bill with some modest improvements that represents a good starting point for debate, they approved it unanimously in committee while making a few small improvements, and important amendments that could ensure our investments best maintain and improve our transportation system are still outstanding and will hopefully be considered by the full Senate.

Statement on the release of the Senate’s long-term transportation reauthorization proposal

While this bill provides a positive starting point, there are other areas where Congress can and should do better.

Senate’s new transportation bill is a good start, but more should be done for local communities

The EPW committee marked up and approved this bill unanimously on June 24th without considering amendments (other than a package of amendments in a manager’s mark.) The amendments mentioned below were discussed or offered and withdrawn, and will hopefully be debated on the floor of the Senate. So keep any letters of support coming — this action is still ongoing!

Senate Committee rolls forward with speedy markup of six-year transportation bill

In a committee markup where the phrase “doing the Lord’s work” was invoked by numerous members on both sides of the aisle, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee sped through a markup of their draft six-year transportation bill in less than an hour this morning, approving it by a unanimous vote with no amendments, save for a manager’s package of amendments agreed to in advance.

While the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up the transportation & housing spending bill this morning, the Senate Commerce Committee — the committee with jurisdiction over rail policy in the Senate — considered the Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act — a bill to govern all passenger rail policy and authorize funding for the next several years. The RREEA bill is a good step forward, supported by T4America wholeheartedly:

Statement in response to introduction of the Railroad Reform, Enhancement and Efficiency Act

Senators Wicker and Booker are doing the nation a great service in crafting a bill that ensures Americans will see continued and improving passenger rail service in the years to come. Passenger rail service is vital and growing in popularity, and keeping the system working and safe requires investment. The Wicker-Booker bill embraces both those ideas. It authorizes necessary funding to start to return the system to a state of good repair and make targeted investments to improve service.

The committee markup of the bill known as RREEA was mostly uneventful, and it passed by a unanimous vote with mostly minor amendments and issues raised — some of which were safety-related and expected in the wake of the recent derailment in Philadelphia. The Commerce Committee is also responsible for freight and rail policy for the long-term bill, and we’ve heard that they could be releasing their draft long-term bill shortly after the July 4th recess.

Lastly, both House and Senate committees tasked with finding the funding to pay for the next long-term transportation bill (or finding the money to extend MAP-21 past July 31) held hearings this week to continue their work along those lines. In the case of the House, they were specifically discussing repatriation of corporate earnings as a possible revenue source.

Repatriation is the process by which companies can bring offshore earnings back to the U.S. at a reduced tax rate, and then all or a share of those tax revenues would be directed to the trust fund, providing revenues for a long-term transportation bill. It’s an idea that’s gotten some traction in the Senate — Senators Barbara Boxer and Rand Paul have introduced a proposal — but it’s still a one-time fix that’s still not a fee paid by the users of the transportation system.

A House Ways and Means subcommittee held a hearing today to discuss repatriation, and the overall takeaway from the hearing seemed to be that while repatriation may be the most feasible option after a gas tax increase was ruled out by Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, there’s still little consensus in the House, and many representatives want to tie it to more thorny issues like corporate tax reform, reducing the chances that it could pass quickly or easily.

In the Senate, the Finance Committee held a hearing today as well to discuss the use of public-private partnerships — a growing trend in many states as they look to up-front cash from the private sector to help fund longer-term projects where the private party defers their payment or profits. Despite the way P3s, as they’re known, are frequently invoked as a possible funding solution, almost all the panelists today noted that although having a greater range of financing options will certainly be a boost to many states and cities, P3s won’t be sufficient without also increasing overall revenues. They’re not a panacea.

Which leads us right back to the elephant in the room: finding and agreeing upon a new, stable revenue source that can keep the nation’s transportation fund solvent for years to come. It was indeed a busy week, and we hope that Congress will keep up the momentum when they return from their weeklong July 4th recess.

US House approves bill by a thin margin that makes cuts to TIGER, transit construction and passenger rail

Late Tuesday night, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass their yearly transportation spending bill with just six votes separating the bill from defeat. While the cuts to TIGER, Amtrak and New Starts transit capital programs were unfortunately approved by the House, it’s unlikely this bill will become law any time soon. That’s because of the Senate’s likely inability to pass any annual spending bills this summer due to the parties’ lack of agreement on overall funding for the government this year.

First, to the thousands of you who sent messages to your representatives in the last week, we thank you for getting engaged on this crucial issue. Though the final vote was disappointing, there’s still hope. We do know that our voices were heard, as many amendments were rejected by significant margins that would have made further cuts to these important programs — reflecting that these legislators are indeed hearing about what their constituents value.

The bad news is that the final bill approved by the House still cut $200 million for all new transit construction, slashed the TIGER competitive grant program by 80 percent, and cut Amtrak’s budget by $240 million. These programs targeted by the House for cuts are precisely the ones that cities, towns and metro regions of all sizes throughout the country are depending on to help them stay economically competitive and bring their ambitious transportation plans to fruition.

The good news is that several short-sighted amendments were roundly defeated, including some to make these above cuts worse.

Rep. Grotham (R-WI) proposed an amendment to make the New Starts cuts even deeper by stripping the bill of all transit capital construction funding ($1.9 billion), which was rejected by voice vote with strong bipartisan opposition. Rep. Emmers (R-MN) proposed an amendment to cut all of the funds used to make transit stations easier to access, boosting ridership and making the service easier and more convenient to use, like projects to improve bike and pedestrian access or support for dense, walkable development near the stops. Transit lines don’t exist in vacuums — successful lines and stations are most often surrounded by other supportive infrastructure that helps connect them to their riders. This amendment was very close, but all House Democrats were joined by 32 of their Republican colleagues to kill the amendment 212-214.

Rep. Brooks (R-AL) proposed two amendments last week to essentially strip all capital and operating funding from Amtrak, and both were defeated by more than 125 votes with strong bipartisan opposition. Rep. Session (R-TX) proposed similar amendments that were both defeated as well. These votes are another reminder of the fact that communities of all kinds — small, large, rural, urban — depend on the service provided by the nation’s passenger rail system. Their constituents certainly don’t see the existence of an affordable transportation option as a partisan issue, to say nothing of the tremendous value provided by making valuable economic connections between metro areas large and small and rural areas throughout the country.

The House’s bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where members are currently drafting their Transportation-HUD spending bill. We’re cautiously optimistic that at least a few of the cuts made by the House’s annual spending bill could be undone — at least partially — in the Senate. However, the only way to ensure that all of these cuts are removed and certainly the only way to increase funding over last year’s bill is for Congress to remove the poorly planned and unwise spending caps put in place by the 2011 sequestration.

One thing is certain: we’ll need your help to make that happen, and we will keep you posted as the annual transportation spending bill continues onto the Senate.

Additional insight from our policy team can be found for our logged-in T4America members below, including a full list of amendments that were voted on during Tuesday night’s debate.

[member_content]This information below is pulled from our members-only wrap-up of the vote that went up yesterday. Read the full post here. And visit t4america.org/members regularly to see these updates.

This final vote count is a sign of things to come.

The U.S. House and Senate Republicans are sticking to sequestration-level discretionary funding amounts for all of their FY2016 spending bills, established in the Budget Control Act of 2011. These spending caps limit funding for the regular appropriation bills in FY2016 to $1.016 trillion, a funding increase of just 0.29% over last year. We expect the House to continue to face uphill challenges in passing their bills and over in the Senate, with near, if not all-out, opposition from the Democrats expected for all 12 annual spending bills.

This issue will not likely resolve itself until the fall. Just yesterday, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) rejected a call from Senate Democrats to hold a “budget summit” this month to resolve the differences between the two parties on top-line annual appropriations levels. Until this larger issue is resolved, we don’t expect the House Transportation-HUD bill that narrowly passed last night to become law any time soon.

Amendments that were considered Tuesday prior to the bills passage include:

Rep. Denham (R-CA) – An amendment to prohibit funds from the bill to be used for high-speed rail in California or for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. A similar amendment passed last year in the House by a vote of 227-186, but this amendment and others to restrict funding to the California high-speed rail project were not included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill due to lack of support in the Senate

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep. Bass (D-CA) – An amendment to make it easier for state and local transportation agencies to use local hire criteria for FTA procurement selection processes. A similar amendment was included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill, and USDOT is currently implementing this through a one-year pilot. Read our take on that original provision from earlier this year.

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep Emmer (R-MN) – An amendment to prohibit the use of funds to carry out projects to improve bicycle and pedestrian access on any FTA New Start (transit) projects.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 212-214 (Zero Democrats voted for the amendment — see roll call vote here)

Rep Meehan (R-PA) – An amendment to prohibit Amtrak from spending capital funds on projects other than the Northeast Corridor until Amtrak spends an amount equal to this year’s Northeast Corridor profits on Northeast Corridor capital construction. Amtrak’s profits from that line in FY2015 were $290 million.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 199-227 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #1 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to take any actions related to financing a new passenger rail project that runs from Orlando to Miami through Indian River County, Florida. This amendment and Rep. Posey’s other two below were targeted at stopping and/or stalling the development of the private Florida East Coast Railway high-speed rail project.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 163-260 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #2 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to authorize exempt facility bonds to finance passenger rail projects that are not reasonably expected to attain a maximum speed in excess of 150 mph.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 148-275 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #3 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to make a loan in an amount that exceeds $600 million under the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 134-287 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Sessions #1 (R-TX) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used by Amtrak to support the route with the highest loss, measured by contributions/(loss) per rider (would eliminate the “Sunset Limited” line from New Orleans to Los Angeles). Rep. Sessions has in the past made amendments similar to this and the following amendment.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 205-218 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Sessions #2 (R-TX) – An amendment to prohibit funds being used by Amtrak to operate any route whose operating costs exceed two times its revenues based on the National Railroad Passenger Corporation FY2014-2018 Five Year Plan from April 2014, targeting nearly all long-distance routes.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 186-237 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Blackburn (R-TN) – An amendment to reduce the overall appropriations for the Transportation-HUD bill by 1%.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 163-259 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Gosar (R-AZ) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to implement or enforce the rule entitled “Hazardous Materials for High-Hazard Flammable Trains”.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 136-286 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Lee (D-CA) – An amendment to strike provisions included in the spending bill that would prohibit USDOT from allowing flights or cruise ships to travel to Cuba.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 176-247 (see roll call vote here)

[/member_content]

US House Passes Transportation-HUD Appropriations on Razor-Thin Margin; 216-210

Late last night, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass their FY2016 Transportation-HUD with just 6 votes separating the bill from defeat. Just 3 Democrats voted for the bill’s passage — Rep. Ashford (D-NE), Rep. Cuellar (D-TX), and Rep. Graham (D-FL) — and 31 Republicans voted in opposition. The list of Republicans voting in opposition included centrists such as Rep. Dold (R-IL), Rep. King (R-NY), and Rep. Meehan (R-PA) and more conservative representatives such as Rep. Amash (R-MI), Ken McClintock (R-CO), and Rep. Massie (R-KY). While the news is bad for TIGER, Amtrak and New Starts transit capital programs — which all received heavy cuts — we do not expect this bill in its current state to become law any time soon.

This final vote count is a sign of things to come.

The U.S. House and Senate Republicans are sticking to sequestration-level discretionary funding amounts for all of their FY2016 spending bills, established in the Budget Control Act of 2011. These spending caps limit funding for the regular appropriation bills in FY2016 to $1.016 trillion, a funding increase of just 0.29% over last year. We expect the House to continue to face uphill challenges in passing their bills and over in the Senate, with near, if not all-out opposition, from the Democrats expected for all 12 annual spending bills.

Amendments that were considered last night prior to the bills passage include:

Rep. Denham (R-CA) – An amendment to prohibit funds from bill to be used for high-speed rail in California or for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. A similar amendment passed last year in the House by a vote of 227-186, but this amendment and others to restrict funding to the California high-speed rail project were not included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill due to lack of support in the Senate

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep. Bass (D-CA) – An amendment to make it easier for state and local transportation agencies to use local hire criteria for FTA procurement selection processes. A similar amendment was included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill and USDOT is currently implementing this through a one-year pilot. Read our take on that original provision from earlier this year.

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep Emmer (R-MN) – An amendment to prohibit the use of funds from being used to carry out projects to improve bicycle and pedestrian access on any FTA New Start (transit) projects.