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House transportation bill uses tomorrow’s revenues to pay for yesterday’s policies

Following final consideration of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act (STRR) Act by the full House of Representatives, Transportation for America chairman John Robert Smith offered this statement:

“In a country that’s drastically changing, the House has doubled down on the status quo and declared that our country’s current model for investing in transportation is the best approach for another six years to come. Congress has once again failed to have a meaningful conversation about raising new revenue from users of the transportation system, choosing instead to tap as much as $85 billion in general taxpayer funds to close the yawning gap in our country’s transportation trust fund — leaving the hard decisions for those willing to lead some other day. We’re as disappointed with Congress as we are with many in the transportation community who are willing to accept a flat-funded multi-year bill that’s paid for by any means necessary.

“On policy, this bill falls far short of the transformational, reform-minded policy that we need to keep our cities and towns prospering as the country changes dramatically. It largely fails to award more money competitively to the best projects on the merits, to increase accountability or transparency for taxpayer dollars, to increase innovative low-cost financing that can leverage local dollars, or to provide greater flexibility for states and metro areas to invest in whatever transportation solutions can bring the greatest benefits.

“In addition, the House bill also fails to give cities, towns and local communities of all sizes greater access to and control over federal transportation dollars. Instead, this bill sends yet more control and funding to unelected bureaucrats at the state level, doubling down on a broken process that local voters overwhelmingly believe chooses projects based on politics, not need.

“There were numerous opportunities to improve the bill, but they were largely ignored or blocked from consideration. A bipartisan proposal from Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Dina Titus (D-NV) that would have given more funding and control to local communities had at least eight other cosponsors and support from local elected leaders in cities small and large. Yet House leaders in key committees refused to let this amendment with broad support even come up for a vote. They refused to let their fellow representatives stand up and speak about the ambitious plans in the local communities they represent. They refused to publicly hear an argument in favor of giving more funding and authority to the local leaders who best know their communities’ needs.

“While Chairmen Shuster and Graves and Ranking Members DeFazio and Holmes Norton are to be commended for moving beyond short-term extensions and toward the multi-year funding certainty needed by states and cities to see their ambitious plans come to life, we need to pair that funding with the right policies, and this bill falls short. We’re hopeful that improvements can continue to be made in conference, including choosing to include the higher funding amount for local communities and incorporating the passenger rail authorization contained in the Senate bill.”

CONTACT:
Steve Davis, Director of Communications
steve.davis@t4america.org // 202-955-5543 x242

Amendments to the House transportation bill we’re tracking

The Rules Committee is considering which amendments to the House transportation bill to send to the full House, which will begin debating and voting on them over the course of this week. We’ll be tracking a handful of these amendments closely and you can find out more about each of them right here.

Bookmark this page and table — we’ll be fleshing out this post over the coming 24-48 hours with more information on some of the amendments and keeping it updated as the Rules Committee finishes approving or rejecting amendments, and as the full House begins debating and voting on them and their multi-year transportation bill. Debate on the House floor begins today, and the Rules Committee is expected to finish up deciding on the 250-plus amendments by this evening. (The Rules Committee’s full list of amendments and their status can be found here.)

Amendments that we’re tracking

Improvements or helpful changes

Amendment number	Description	Offered by	Rules Committee Approve? (Y/N)	Final floor outcome
#18 - TOD in RRIF (sense of Congress)	(Nonbinding) bipartisan amendment to express the Sense of Congress that TOD is an eligible activity under the Railroad Rehabilitation Improvement Financing program (RRIF). (See #37 below, which would actually make this policy change binding.)	Reps. Lipinski, Quigley, Dold	Approved	Not offered
#21 - Improved project selection process	This would improve planning and project selection performance measures and transparency.	Rep. Desaulnier	Approved	Rejected by recorded vote.
#37 - TOD in RRIF	Bipartisan amendment to make transit-oriented development projects (TOD) eligible for funding from the Railroad Rehabilitation Improvement Financing program (RRIF).	Reps. Lipinski, Quigley, Dold	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#47 - Ped safety performance measures	This would require a study and rule on safety standards or performance measures to improve pedestrian safety.	Rep. Schakowsky	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#66 - Ped safety	Bipartisan amendment to create a new national priority program for non-motorized safety, increase the number of states eligible for funding through the non-motorized National Priority Safety Program, and double the funding for that program.	Reps. Blumenauer and Buchanan	Approved	Rejected by voice vote
#75 - Accessibility performance measures	This would establish performance measures for accessibility for low-income and minority populations and people with disabilities; cumulative increase in residents’ connection to jobs; and the variety of transportation choices available to users, such as public transportation, bike and pedestrian pathways, and roads and highways. (This improves upon the changes made in the committee markup by Rep. Carson's amendment. See #7 in our "Ten Things" post.)	Reps. Ellison, Grijalva, Waters and Huffman	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#87 - CMAQ funds for bikesharing & shared mobility	Bipartisan amendment to make innovative new shared mobility options like bikesharing, carsharing, and transportation network companies, among others, eligible to receive funds from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement and Federal Transit Administration programs. Expands associated transit improvements to include these shared-use projects that can directly enhance transit.	Reps. Swalwell and Schweikert	Approved	Rejected, 181-237
#101 - TIFIA loans for TOD projects	Bipartisan amendment to make transit-oriented development projects eligible to receive low-cost TIFIA loans, and lower the threshold for loans from $50 million down to $10 million to help smaller projects access the program — both of which are zero cost to the program. (This amendment was offered in markup but not voted on. See #3 in our amendment tracker from the committee markup.)	Reps. Edwards and Comstock	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#110 - Restore transit flexibility	Bipartisan amendment to restore the current ability that states and metros have to flex federal CMAQ funds toward New Starts projects — increasing the possible federal share of these projects back up to 80 percent from the reduced federal match of 50 percent in the STRR Act. But this amendment would not change the STRR Act's restriction on states or metros using their Surface Transportation Program funding as local matching dollars. (Read more about the STRR Act's changes for transit in #5 in our "Ten Things" explainer, though this amendment does not fix the reduction in federal match from 80 to 50 percent.	Reps. Nadler, Lipinski, Dold	Approved but modified	Approved as modified
#131 - Local control	Bipartisan amendment to increase the total amount of flexible funds, send more money directly to local communities, and improve the process by which the state chooses projects to fund in smaller communities with fewer than 200,000 people. Read more about the Davis-Titus amendment in #3 of our "Ten Things" explainer.)	Introduced by Reps. Davis and Titus (and co-sponsored by Reps. Rouzer, Lipinski, Frankel, Edwards, Rokita, Bustos, Moore and Gwen	Rejected by Rules	n/a

Potentially damaging changes

Amendment number	Description	Offered by	Rules Committee approve? (Y/N)	Final floor outcome
#8 - No additional road landscaping	Repeals the ability for the Secretary of Transportation to approve the cost of landscaping and roadside development as eligible project costs for highway projects	Rep. Hartzler	Approved	Rejected, 172-255
#26 - No federal funding for streetcars	Prohibits Federal financial assistance for any project or activity to establish, maintain, operate, or otherwise support a streetcar service.	Rep. Russell	Approved	Rejected by voice vote
#41 - Opting out of federal transportation program	Provides the authority for states that raise transportation revenue to opt out of the federal program entirely, provided OMB scores the provision as deficit neutral.	Rep. Garrett	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#63 - Debt to equity for transit agencies	Requires transit agencies to have a debt-to-equity ratio of 1:1 to be eligible to receive any federal capital or operating funds.	Rep. Culberson	Approved	Rejected, 116-313
#68 - Metros can flex funds away from TAP projects	Allows large metropolitan planning organizations that control Transportation Alternatives Program funds to shift 100 percent of those TAP funds away from the required competition process and toward non-biking and walking projects.	Rep. Carter (GA)	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#69 - Removes STP flexibility for TAP projects	Removes the eligibility for flexible Surface Transportation Program funds to be spent on Transportation Alternatives Program projects and repeals the small Recreational Trails program	Rep. Carter (GA)	Withdrawn	n/a
#158 - Ending recreational trails program	Repeals Recreational Trails program funding, though it was modified to strike eligibility only for non-motorized recreational trails, still allowing funding for motorized recreational trails (ATVs, motorcycles, etc.)	Rep. Yoho	Rejected by Rules	n/a
#180 - (Sense of Congress) to end federal program	(Nonbinding) Sense of Congress that we should transfer authority for most taxing and spending for highway programs and mass transit programs to states.	Rep. DeSantis	Approved	Rejected, 118-310

Updated – Ten things to know about the House transportation bill

Updated 11/5/2015 5 p.m. EST. We wrote this post in preparation for consideration of this bill on the House floor. But after the House finished consideration of the bill on Thursday (11/5), we updated this post to reflect the changes made (or not made) over the last few days. Look for the updated notes in the blue boxes with each item below and read our full statement on the bill here. -Ed.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee debated and approved their multi-year transportation reauthorization proposal last week. Next step is consideration on the House floor and then, if approved, conferenced (merged through negotiations) with the Senate, which passed their multi-year DRIVE Act back in July. Here are ten things you need to know about what’s in (or not in) the House bill which is expected to be considered on the House floor early next week.

ten-things-house-bill-strr

1) The House will likely tap the same non-transportation revenue sources as the Senate did to pay the tab

Though the House has yet to officially pass a plan to pay for their bill (unlike the Senate), we expect them to closely emulate the Senate plan to cobble together about $45 billion from numerous future funding sources to fully cover the cost of the first three years of their bill. Though as many as 10 years would be needed to realize some of the new revenues to cover the next three years of spending, it would instantly transfer billions from the general fund to the transportation fund, increasing the deficit, a practice that Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) called “generational theft.” We’ve already tapped general taxpayer dollars to the tune of $73 billion over the last few years to keep the nation’s transportation trust fund solvent.

One factor possibly complicating this plan is that the House and Senate just reached a separate budget agreement (to keep the government operating) that also requires selling oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve — a mechanism that comprised the second largest stream of funding for the Senate’s bill. If that expected $9 billion in revenue for the DRIVE Act is no more, how will the House fill this gap?

For a detailed rundown of the Senate’s funding plan the House is expected to emulate, read our ten things post on the Drive Act.

Updated: The House did indeed use the Senate funding sources as their starting point, but there was a fairly stunning development late on Wednesday night when an amendment was proposed that taps billions from a Federal Reserve surplus account; an amount that could be sufficient to fund the bill for a full six years. It may be one way to allow other contentious payfors from the Senate to be removed — the dividend rate change for banks among them — but it could also nearly double the amount of money available. We’ll be watching this closely as more news develops.

2) Enshrines three more years of policy into law than we can pay for

The Senate bill — and we expect the House bill to follow suit as covered above — authorizes the surface transportation program for six full years but includes a funding plan that can only cover the first three years of the bill. The bill would use $46 billion in future offsets to cover its three-year length, leaving a future Congress to find another $50 billion or so to pay for the last three years. We’d be the first to say that we urgently need the certainty and stability that a multi-year bill provides to states and local communities as they plan transportation investments, but this is unprecedented and it’s incredibly shortsighted to lock our country’s transportation policy in stone for six years when we aren’t willing to pay for it. Especially when we’re enshrining transportation policy into law for the next six years, which simply doesn’t do enough to meet the needs of local communities of all sizes. Which leads us to…

Updated: Per the point above, it’s unclear just how much funding is going to be available. Enough funding for the first three years will be transferred, but the new funding sources tapped via amendment on Wednesday will provide far more funding and could be enough for the full six years of the House bill. Leadership will have decisions to make about what to do with the additional funding.

3) Misses a golden opportunity to provide more funding to local communities

The House bill is a major missed opportunity for giving cities, towns and local communities of all sizes greater access and control over federal transportation dollars. An amendment from Representatives Davis (R-IL) and Titus (D-NV), with broad bipartisan support, would direct more flexible funding to towns and cities and increase transparency in how projects are selected, but it was not included by the committee. Representatives Davis and Titus will be offering this amendment on the floor and we are going to need your help to make sure it gets into the bill.

Just like the Senate, the House bill does slightly increase the share of the bill’s most flexible funds that go to local communities by five percent (up to 55 percent of just one of many core highway programs), but that improvement only happens incrementally over the six years of the bill. This means that the full increase comes in the later years of the bill that likely won’t be paid for anytime soon — see #2 above. The House bill does lower to $10 million the minimum cost of projects that can apply for low-cost TIFIA loans, making it easier for local communities to access this smart federal financing program, but far more must be done to ensure that towns and cities both big and small have the resources and control they need to stay to invest in the infrastructure they need to be economically competitive.

Updated: The Davis-Titus amendment was not allowed to be brought to the floor by the House Rules Committee, despite the significant bipartisan support — among the most for any amendment offered. This means that there was no airing of the argument on the House floor and no chance for even debating the merits of giving local communities more control or authority over transportation dollars. This was a major point of contention raised in our final statement on the bill.

4) Includes a freight program to help states and metro areas address goods movement issues, but needlessly limits innovative multimodal projects

Similar to the DRIVE Act, the House bill encourages crafting a multimodal freight plan but only about 10 percent of the new roughly $725 million per year discretionary freight grant program can be spent on multimodal projects. This means that the House is dictating from Washington exactly how states and metro areas should solve their freight challenges, robbing them of the flexibility to invest in whatever option can best keep freight moving.

This flies in the face of past statements from this same committee, which stated clearly in a report three years ago that our freight issues are multimodal and require multimodal solutions. “Moving goods and people effectively depends on all modes of transportation,” said Chairman Shuster in that report. “Because bottlenecks at any point in the transportation system can seriously impede freight mobility and drive up the cost of the goods,” Rep. John Duncan added, “improving the efficient and safe flow of freight across all modes of transportation directly impacts the health of the economy.” The committee’s recommendation was to “ensure robust public investment in all modes of transportation on which freight movement relies.” The committee should take its own advice.

Updated: This was unchanged.

5) Small changes to transit funding with sizable implications

While the bill largely preserves the historical share of funding overall intended for transit, it makes two changes that will have significant impacts on communities planning new or expanded transit service to meet the burgeoning demand for housing and jobs near public transportation.

First, while highway projects will continue to have 80 percent of their costs covered by federal highway funds, the committee lowered the share paid on transit capital projects to 50 percent. While many big transit projects already match more than half of the cost locally, especially in more prosperous metro areas, poorer and smaller communities will both be punished. Federal Small Starts transit capital funds often cover well over 50 percent of the cost for new bus lines or bus rapid transit service in smaller communities, which will be disproportionately impacted by this change.

Secondly, the House bill eliminates the flexibility for a state or metro area to use a portion of the flexible federal funds that they control outright as the local contribution or match for transit projects, taking away more of the flexibility and control from local communities that this committee professes to value. Representatives Lipinski and Nadler spoke up during committee and are working to fix these before the bill is finalized on the House floor.

One piece of good news is that the small grant program to help support smart development around transit to help boost ridership and the bottom line will continue to be funded at $10 million per year for 6 years.

Updated: An amendment from Rep. Nadler and several others to fix this was approved and incorporated into the bill, though it doesn’t quite return things to standard practice of today. Under the House bill as passed, states or metros will be able to shift their CMAQ funds to transit projects and use that as part of their local contribution to a project. This can raise the effective federal contribution to these projects over 50 percent, though the match rate will stay at the new lower 50 percent rate. We’ll have some more information on this soon.

6) A once sizable loan program (TIFIA) slashed by 80 percent; no support for transit-oriented development projects

The TIFIA low-cost financing program — where federal loans are paid back from local revenues often generated from the projects themselves — is cut significantly from $1 billion down to $200 million per year. Congress had just massively increased this program in the current MAP-21 law in order to stretch our limited federal dollars as far as possible and leverage other revenue sources. And with so much more loan money available after that 2012 increase, Congress directed USDOT to award dollars in a first-come, first-serve basis instead of by competition based on the merits of the projects. Now the House proposes to cut the program by 80 percent while still preventing USDOT from judging projects on need, performance or return on investment.

Secondly, Representative Edwards (D-MD) and Barbara Comstock (R-VA) were urged to withdraw their amendment to allow transit-oriented development projects to be eligible for receiving these low-cost TIFIA loans — a common sense proposal that would net more riders and revenue for the operating agencies and cost the federal government zero dollars.

Updated: This amendment was yet another rejected by the Rules Committee, which barred it from receiving a vote or debate on the House floor. This amendment had zero cost and allowed these projects only to apply for funding. TIFIA — one of the points of pride for the architects of MAP-21 — remains slashed by 80 percent (down to $200 million) in the final bill.

7) New performance measure on condition and access for disadvantaged urban areas

Thanks to the efforts of Representative Andre Carson (D-IN), the House bill does include a new performance measure intended to “assess the conditions, accessibility, and reliability of roads in economically distressed urban communities.” While we’d like for this section to include a more holistic measure for access — as in access to jobs or opportunity by any mode of travel as a better and broader indicator than relying on simply road condition — we’re happy to see the amendment’s inclusion. This signals that the House is open to conversations on adding new or improved performance measures to the bill. That’s a positive development.

Updated: No change made to this amendment. However, a similar amendment from Reps. Ellison, Grijalva, Waters and Huffman would have expanded on this idea and “established performance measures for accessibility for low-income and minority populations and people with disabilities; cumulative increase in residents’ connection to jobs; and the variety of transportation choices available to users, such as public transportation, bike and pedestrian pathways, and roads and highways,” per our amendment tracker. This second amendment was rejected by the Rules Committee.

8) Better planning to alleviate income-draining commutes and connect more people to jobs

An amendment from Representatives Albio Sires (D-NJ) and Ryan Costello (R-PA) was included to expand transportation options for commuters — with a focus on low-income communities — by leveraging the resources of employers and the private sector. Larger metropolitan areas would be required to develop regional goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled during peak commuting hours and improve transportation connections between areas with lots of jobs and areas where low-income households are concentrated. They would be required to identify existing public transportation services and employer-based commuter programs that support better access to jobs and identify proposed projects and programs that could reduce congestion and help connect more people to jobs. This is modeled after the successful Commuter Trip Reduction program in Washington State, which we profiled indirectly in this case study on a vanpooling program there.

Updated: No changes made.

9) The TIGER competitive grant program for smart state and local projects? Where is it?

Following yesterday’s announcement of another successful round of TIGER competitive grant awards and the proud press releases flying out of representatives’ offices from both parties, one might ask why TIGER isn’t included in the House bill. With leaders in the House speaking regularly of the need to get a better return on investment for our limited dollars, leverage other funding sources, and encourage more local innovation, they’d be smart to formally authorize TIGER — a grant program which can help realize those goals. Neither the House or Senate bills do this, and the communities that rely on this program — one of the few ways they can directly receive funding for their projects — will have to wonder each year if Congress’ appropriators will keep the program going.

Updated: TIGER is still M.I.A. in the final House bill. The bill has no increased competitive funds for innovative multimodal projects, save for the slight amount of the new freight program available for multimodal freight projects. The House bill continues the status quo of awarding funds and largely stays away from any shift to awarding funds based on benefits, merits or possible return on investment.

10) Where did the TAP program go?

The Transportation Alternatives Program that states and local communities use to help make walking and biking safer and more convenient was folded into another program (the Surface Transportation Program) and capped at $819 million per year over the life of the bill. This program already makes up just two percent of the total highway budget, and it will be even less if this bill is approved as is. While the policy was not changed in any damaging way, capping these funds (in a bill where all other programs increase in funding with inflation over the life of the bill) more or less guarantees that TAP will be capped in any future House and Senate conference agreement.

Updated: TAP was unchanged, though there were several amendments rejected that would have further reduced its funding or allowed states and metros to flex its funding away to other programs. But in a bill where almost all other programs grew at least slightly, TAP’s size is capped over the life of the bill, which results in an actual decrease in funds due to inflation — “compound dis-interest.” With possibly six years of funding now procured by the House, we could be looking at no net increase in funds for biking and walking for six more years instead of just three.

House Committee passes a multi-year surface transportation bill

On October 23^rd, the US House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee passed out of committee a long-term surface authorization. The bill, the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act (HR 3763), authorizes the federal surface transportation program for six years, and recommends flat line funding plus inflation over the life of the bill.

Transportation for America (T4A) published a summary of the bill (pre-mark-up) for members, click HERE to download it.

Ultimately, the big-four agreement – a bipartisan agreement determining which amendments would be allowed, accepted or rejected that exists between the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the full- and subcommittees – proved to hold firm during yesterday’s nearly six-hour meeting.

Of the 160 plus amendments offered during the mark-up by members of the committee, the Chairman agreed to only three:

adding tourism to state and MPO planning scopes,
exempting weight limits for emergency vehicles, and
including a performance metric on urban highway state of good repair.

Only two received votes and both failed by large margins. In return for assurances by Chairman Shuster (R-PA) that the Members’ concerns would be taken care of before the bill reaches the House floor, nearly all Members offered and withdrew their amendments.

Of importance, Representatives Davis (R-IL) and Titus (D-NV) offered an amendment to increase the amount of funding directed to metro regions by $9 billion over the life of the bill and improve the transparency and project selection process for regions under 200,000 in population. Download the Davis-Titus summary memo HERE.

Though Rep. Davis (R-IL) had the votes yesterday to pass this amendment, he offered and withdrew the amendment after it gained the largest number of bipartisan statements of support during the markup (those came from Reps. Davis, Titus, Frankel (D-FL), Edwards (D-MD), Rouzer (R-NC)). Chairman Shuster signaled that he is open to working with the bipartisan group to make improvements to this area of the bill as it moves forward in the process.

There were also a number of non-controversial amendments included in the manager’s amendment prior to the start of the meeting. Notable amendments include:

Sires (D-NJ) and Costello (R-PA) – amends the planning section to encourage MPOS to develop congestion management plans that develop strategies and projects that improve transportation access during peak hour travel and would include employers and representatives of low-income households.
Curbelo (R-FL) and Titus (D-NV) – amends the safe streets language to encourage reporting on the development and implementation of safe streets at the state level.

Despite a number of statements of support from various organizations, T4A finds that this bill doesn’t meet the forward-looking federal policies needed to strengthen the economic and social prosperity of our nation’s communities. We will continue to work to ensure the House STRR Act and the Senate DRIVE Act move in our direction and I thank you for your support.

House transportation bill is a missed opportunity

Washington DC — Following the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee markup of their Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act (STRR) Act, Transportation for America director James Corless offered this statement:

“We thank Chairmen Shuster and Graves, and Ranking Members DeFazio and Holmes Norton for taking the lead in moving beyond the repeated short-term extensions of the nation’s transportation program. However, the House transportation bill falls far short of the transformational, reform-minded policy that our country needs at this time.

“First and foremost, the bill represents a major missed opportunity to give cities, towns and local communities of all sizes greater access and control over federal transportation dollars. We were disappointed to see a bipartisan amendment from Representatives Davis (R-IL) and Titus (D-NV) fail to be included in the final bill approved by the committee; an amendment that would have directed more funding to towns and cities of all sizes and increased transparency in how projects are selected.

“There are other flawed and troubling provisions in the House bill that must be addressed. It enshrines in law that local transit capital projects receive no more than 50 percent of their funding from federal sources, creating a large inequity with highway capital projects. The bill diminishes the ability of states and metropolitan areas to use their most flexible funds for certain transit projects altogether. While the bill includes a multimodal freight program, funds for non-highway projects are capped at 10 percent. And Representative Edwards (D-MD) was urged to withdraw her amendment to allow transit-oriented development projects to be eligible for receiving low-cost loans from the federal TIFIA financing program — a common sense proposal that would net more riders and in return revenue for the operating agencies.

“Most alarming, when the check comes due for the six years of this law, the House still has no way to pay the tab. As much as 30 percent of the bill’s cost will have to be covered by general fund tax dollars, which have already been tapped to keep the trust fund solvent to the tune of $73 billion.

“The bill does preserve funding for the popular Transportation Alternatives Program and public transportation in general, includes employers and representatives of low-income job related services in the planning process, and includes an important complete streets provision that ensures a more comprehensive approach to road design and safety for everyone.

“While we’re thankful that the House has finally moved beyond short-term extensions and toward the multi-year funding certainty needed by states and cities to see their ambitious plans come to life, this bill needs to do much more. We look forward to working to improve it as the House advances their reauthorization proposal and Congress seeks consensus on a multi-year transportation authorization bill.”

Ten amendments worth watching closely during today’s House markup

The House is beginning markup of their transportation reauthorization proposal right now (10 a.m. EDT) and we have the lowdown on eleven amendments worth keeping your eyes on out of the more than 160 that were filed.

Update 10/22 3:30 p.m.: The markup concluded after 3 p.m. on Thursday. Details are in the table below.

Our list begins with this amendment from Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Dina Titus (D-NV), which would do three basic things:

Provide more flexible funds overall. The amendment increases the amount of funding in the federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) overall, which are the most flexible transportation dollars that can be invested in almost any type of local project, whether a project to improve a road, increase the reach of transit, or make a street safer for biking and walking.
Send more money directly to local communities. The amendment increases the share of flexible STP funding that goes directly to local governments.
Help smaller communities too. It also ensures that the smaller regions with less than 200,000 people that don’t directly control STP funding have more certainty over how the funds reserved for their areas will be spent. This is accomplished by requiring the state to only fund the projects that local communities actively apply for. A new reporting process would make clear to the public which projects applied for funding and how the state prioritized and selected them.

Our full explainer on the amendment is here.

The time is short to get supportive votes for this amendment this morning, so send a message to your representative, especially if yours sits on the T&I Committee in the House. Even without a representative on the committee, you can still send a message to yours and urge them to call their colleagues this morning. We’re working hard to get enough votes for this bill and we need every bit of help possible.

SEND A MESSAGE

Amendment tracker

~~We’ll be tracking the outcomes on these amendments in realtime during the markup in the table below (refresh the page), and follow us on Twitter along the way.~~ @T4America The markup is over and the details are in the table below. Below the table is a short summary of each amendment.

Amendment	Offered by	Outcome?
Local control & transparency	Reps. Davis & TItus	Offered and withdrawn
Safe streets language	Reps. Curbelo and Titus	Included in approved manager's package; not modified.
Transit-oriented development in TIFIA	Rep. Donna Edwards	Withdrawn, opposed by Chairman Shuster
Job connections	Reps. Sires and Costello	Included in approved manager's package; the "shall" changed to "may".
Gas tax indexing	Rep. Barletta	Offered and withdrawn
Project selection transparency and performance	Reps. Bustos and Crawford	Not addressed during markup
Preserving transit and highway equity	Reps. Nadler and Lipinski	Offered and withdrawn. Assurances from Reps. Shuster and Defazio that they will address.
Eliminating public transportation	Rep. Sanford	Not addressed during markup
FUTURE Trip Act (Research)	Rep. Lipinski	Offered and withdrawn
Improving national freight program	Reps. Lipinski, Nadler, Brown & Sires	Offered and withdrawn
Local hire	Rep. Napolitano	Offered and withdrawn

The amendments

1) Transparency and local control – Reps. Davis and Titus

Covered above.

2) Safe Streets – Reps. Curbelo and Titus

The House bill already includes some language encouraging states and metropolitan planning organizations to plan and design for the safety needs of all users—regardless of age, ability, or mode of transportation—in federally-funded projects. This amendment would improve that language by requiring the U.S. Department of Transportation to provide regular updates on states’ progress and best practices. The majority of pedestrian deaths occur on roads which are subject to federal oversight, but which are too often designed and operated only for speeding traffic—even in areas near homes or schools, and where people of all ages and abilities are out walking. The Safe Streets Amendment would help make sure these roads are planned and designed for the safety of all users.

3) Transit-oriented development in TIFIA – Rep. Donna Edwards

This amendment would expand the eligibility in the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program to include transit-oriented development (TOD) projects, and lower the minimum project cost down to $10 million to help include smaller projects in this innovative financing program. Demand for living near transit is projected to double over the next 20 years to over 15 million households and to meet this demand, significant new development near transit stations will be needed. This kind of amendment would make TOD projects easier by making them eligible for TIFIA financing.

4) Job connections (The Commute Less Act) – Reps. Sires and Costello

This amendment would expand transportation options for commuters (with a focus on low-income communities) by leveraging the resources of employers and the private sector. Larger metropolitan areas would be required to develop regional goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled during peak commuting hours and improve transportation connections between areas with lots of jobs and areas where low-income households are concentrated. They would be required to identify existing public transportation services and employer-based commuter programs that support better access to jobs and identify proposed projects and programs that could reduce congestion and help connect more people to jobs.

This is modeled after the successful Commuter Trip Reduction program in Washington State, which we profiled indirectly in this case study on a vanpooling program there. T4America endorsed this amendment, and we believe it’s included in the manager’s package of amendments, though it was modified on its inclusion.

5) Gas tax indexing — Rep. Barletta

This amendment would index the gas tax to inflation and establish a congressional task force on the Highway Trust Fund to report out bill language on increases to the gas tax or other funding changes that could be fast-tracked in the House — with mandatory votes required and no amendments possible.

6) Project selection transparency and performance – Reps. Bustos and Crawford

The Metropolitan Planning Enhancement Act would both rebuild public trust by increasing transparency with how transportation projects are selected and ensure that limited funds are invested efficiently, by prioritizing projects that bring the most value to a state or region. Projects included and described in state or metropolitan transportation plans would be scored against other projects and selected against criteria that supports national and state goals. Most states currently have limited to no criteria, which make it challenging for the public to understand how their funds are being spent or how any additional revenue would improve their daily commute.

This is a start toward removing politics from the project selection process and ensuring that our limited resources are invested in projects that provide the highest return on investment. T4America endorsed this amendment.

7) Preserving transit and highway equity – Reps. Nadler and Lipinski

The House’s draft reauthorization included a dangerous provision that would lower the share that the federal government pays on new transit projects from 80 percent down to 50 percent. The federal match for highway projects would remain at 80 percent. While the federal government usually ends up only paying 50 percent of the costs for most transit projects because of the long line of projects applying for these limited transit funds in any given year, it’s important that we keep the playing field level and equitable between highway and transit projects. And with more general taxpayer funds being transferred to keep the trust fund afloat over the life of this bill, it’s even more important to keep the matches equitable. This amendment would eliminate that provision and preserve the 80 percent match.

8) Eliminating public transportation – Rep. Sanford

This amendment would cut the entire transit title (Title 49 chapter 53) from the bill, essentially eliminating all public transportation funding and policy from the House’s proposal. This amendment is a non-starter.

9) FUTURE Trip Act (Research) – Rep. Lipinski

This amendment would “support innovative technologies” and research into things like the deployment of technologies for connected and autonomous vehicles, among many other projects to improve research and data collection. Read the full summary of the amendment’s provisions here.

10) National Freight and Highway Projects – Reps. Lipinski, Nadler, Brown & Sires

There’s a freight program in the House bill, but it places arbitrary caps on how much money can be spent on any mode of freight transport, instead of letting states or metro areas decide themselves how to most efficiently invest their freight dollars to keep things moving. This amendment would remove the arbitrary cap on the amount of funding that can be spent on multimodal freight projects.

11) Local hire – Rep. Napolitano

Enables local hiring preferences to be considered during the procurement process on transit projects as long as one local jurisdiction within the entire region has per capita income of 80 percent or less of the national average or an unemployment rate that is 1 percent greater than the national average.

The details on the Davis-Titus amendment to the House transportation bill to increase the funding going to local communities

Two Representatives championing the cause of giving local communities more control over federal transportation dollars will introduce a modified plan in the House to steer more funding directly to local communities — a plan they hope to have incorporated into the House transportation authorization bill being marked up in committee this Thursday (10/22).

Davis Titus Amendment promo Late last week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released their proposal for a six-year transportation reauthorization.

Like the Senate’s version from this summer, the committee authorizes only three years of funding in a bill that contains six years of policy requirements. But unlike the Senate bill that cobbled together three years of funding from more than ten years of future offsets, the House continues to punt on the funding question and offers no actual solutions for keeping the nation’s transportation fund solvent for the life of the bill. With the House Ways and Means Committee also not providing any indication as to where funding will come from to pay for this bill, it’s like weighing a decision to buy a new house without knowing any of the loan terms up front on a 30-year mortgage.

While the policy in the bill is also far from the kind of transformational, reform-minded bill that we have been pressing for, there’s a very tangible improvement that will be proposed by a bipartisan group of representatives, and it’s one worth fighting for to include in the bill this week before it moves to the floor.

The amendment from Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Dina Titus (D-NV) would do three things:

Provide more flexible funds overall. The amendment increases the amount of funding in the federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) overall, which are the most flexible transportation dollars that can be invested in almost any type of local project, whether a project to improve a road, increase the reach of transit, or make a street safer for biking and walking.
Send more money directly to local communities. The amendment increases the share of flexible STP funding that goes directly to local governments.
Help smaller communities too. It also ensures that the smaller regions with less than 200,000 people that don’t directly control STP funding have more certainty over how the funds reserved for their areas will be spent. This is accomplished by requiring the state to only fund the projects that local communities actively apply for. A new reporting process would make clear to the public which projects applied for funding and how the state prioritized and selected them.

We need to drive up support for this plan now as the House considers their bill in committee this Thursday. Send a message today to your Representatives and urge them to support the Davis-Titus amendment.

SEND A MESSAGE

How the current system works for local communities, and how it falls short

Large metro areas (over 200,000 people) directly receive a share of flexible federal dollars through a process known as suballocation. The Davis-Titus amendment would increase the share of these flexible dollars that they control from 50 percent up to 67 percent of the program’s total funding

But today, small metro areas (under 200,000 people) are at the mercy of their state department of transportation’s opaque decision-making process for spending in their area. In these smaller areas, those “suballocated” funds go directly to the state instead, which has total control over deciding how these funds will be spent. The only basic requirement is that the state must spend a predetermined share of those funds based on population within the state’s smaller metro areas, but the local community gets little say on how those dollars are allocated.

Those decisions are left entirely up to the state, even though the funds are expressly intended by federal law for those smaller cities and metro areas.

While there’s some variety from state to state in how this process plays out — some states are more respectful of local communities’ wishes than others — it means that a local community could see their priorities passed over completely by their state department of transportation. A local community could have a pressing need like improving an important downtown main street or intersection safety improvements that yield stronger outcomes and benefits per dollar spent, and the state could instead decide to add a lane on the state highway on the edge of town instead. As long as the state spends the appropriate amount of money within that area, that’s considered a proper use of the money intended for use in that community.

What would the Davis-Titus amendment change?

The overall funding intended for metro areas and cities of all sizes would increase in two ways: First, the size of the flexible program known as the Surface Transportation Program (STP), which can be spent on almost anything from roads to bridges to transit to bike lanes, would be increased across the board. Secondly, the share of STP that gets suballocated to metro areas of all sizes increases from 50 percent of STP funding to 67 percent. That means more money will be given directly to metro areas and metropolitan planning organizations.

Last but not least, an important change is made to ensure that smaller metro areas aren’t left behind. Instead of being put solely at the state’s discretion, under this proposal, states would only be permitted to fund the projects that local communities enter into a transparent application process to receive funding. So if a local community hasn’t applied for funding for a certain project, the state wouldn’t be able to fund it with suballocated STP dollars and satisfy the requirement that they spend a certain share in these smaller areas.

In addition, this new application process has some other requirements to improve transparency that would make it clear to the public which projects applied for funding and how the state prioritized and selected them, allowing local leaders and citizens a mechanism to hold their state accountable.

Why support the Davis-Titus amendment?

A compelling case can be made that Americans are willing to contribute more to invest in transportation, but they absolutely want to know that the dollars a) will be spent wisely on the projects that do the most to get people to work, school and daily needs and b) they want more decisions in the hands of the levels of government closest to them so they can hold them accountable.

What does this mean for the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act

The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act has been one of our biggest priorities for more than a year now and has also been championed in the House by Representatives Davis and Titus. That bill would put a small share of each state’s federal transportation dollars into a competitive grant program, with local communities represented in the selected process, so that towns and cities of all sizes could compete directly on the merits for transportation funds.

This is a significant and transformative proposal, but as we’ve worked hard with countless local partners, mayors, elected leaders, business groups and trade associations here in Washington to build consensus, the modified Davis-Titus proposal is the one with the best chance of being incorporated into the House’s bill this week.

This new proposal wouldn’t have happened without the strong support that has been pouring in for months on the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, however. Your emails, phone calls, letters and meetings have made it clear to these Representatives that this idea has traction, and this new proposal is a direct result of your past support for the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act.

So in the House, in the short-term, we’ll be focusing our efforts on the modified Davis-Titus amendment because it represents the best chance to accomplish many of the core goals for Innovation in Surface Transportation Act: increase local access and control over federal transportation funding and improve the transparency for how those funds are spent. This new proposal is a smart compromise that should be incorporated into the multi-year transportation bill being considered in House committee on Thursday, October 22nd, and one that will ensure that smart, locally-driven, homegrown transportation investments get the funding they need.

Send a message to your Representatives and urge them to support the Davis-Titus amendment. It only takes a moment, and vocal support for this plan will be crucial to getting it incorporated into the full bill.

Federal update: Path clears on a short-term deal to avoid government shutdown

Though all federal funding expires on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, Congress appears poised to avoid a government shutdown and extend current funding levels through December 11, 2015. The U.S. Senate may pass a continuing resolution (CR) spending bill tomorrow with House passage expected the same day. What will happen between now and this new December 11^th spending deadline is less clear in light of Speaker of House John Boehner’s (R-OH) unexpected retirement announced last Friday.

Here’s our members-only look at what you need to know from Congress related to transportation funding & policy.

Short-term outlook

As reported last week, Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) introduced a CR proposal to provide funding through December 11, while also providing $700 million for wildfires, extending Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Authorization through next March, and restricting funds to Planned Parenthood. The Senate failed to pass Senator Cochran’s proposal on a 47-52 vote with 7 Republicans opposing the bill.

In response, the Senate removed language pertaining to Planned Parenthood as well as the FAA authorization from Senator Cochran’s proposal. The Senate tied his CR proposal to a House-passed bill (H.R. 719, the TSA Office of Inspection Accountability Act of 2015) to speed passage out of Congress. The Senate plans to force consideration in the near-term with a procedural move called a cloture vote this evening. If the cloture vote is successful, the Senate will vote on final passage late Tuesday. Outgoing Speaker Boehner has indicated that he plans to bring up the Senate’s version of the CR for a vote on Wednesday before the fiscal year 2015 expires at midnight.

Long-term outlook

The good news is that in this scenario, the federal government will remain open on Thursday, October 1 — a markedly different outcome than many expected last week. However, Congress has a full docket of pressing matters to deal with between now and the end of the year: including a modified FY16 budget that many hope will ease federal sequestration spending limits and include an omnibus spending package, tax extenders, a federal debt limit increase and extend the positive train control implementation deadline.

The House Republican Caucus will also hold leadership elections to replace outgoing Speaker Boehner and the remainder of the leadership team. Most believe current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will receive the necessary support to become Speaker, but he is expected to receive opposition from Congressman Daniel Weber (R-FL), among others. Many Capitol Hill observers are starting to look beyond the Speaker election to the expected campaigns for majority leader, whip and conference chair, and whether or not members from the House Freedom Caucus will receive any of these posts.

Speaker Boehner has indicated a desire to achieve much prior to his retirement, stating “I don’t want to leave my successor a dirty barn.” One item not yet addressed is House action on a multi-year transportation authorization. The House Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Committee is awaiting transportation funding levels from the Ways & Means Committee before T&I introduces and marks up their version of a surface transportation authorization. House action on a multi-year transportation authorization may very well be sidelined through the month of October due to the expected budget process coupled with House Republican leadership elections.

As always, we will update you as more information comes available.

A proposal in the U.S. House could send more transportation funding to local communities

Last week, the Senate passed their multi-year transportation bill, the DRIVE Act, which authorizes funding for six years but with only enough funding for the first three years. The House left for August recess before taking up the Senate’s long-term bill, so Congress passed a three-month extension of MAP-21 that extends the program until the end of October.

Unfortunately, the Wicker-Booker amendment that local communities across the country pushed so hard for did not make it into the Senate’s DRIVE Act.

But there is still an opportunity to get a similar proposal into the final bill. The House is expected to begin debate on their own multi-year transportation bill when they come back in September and it’s critical that they hear strong support for the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act (ISTA) to ensure it is included in their bill.

Send a message to your Representative and urge them to support ISTA to give local communities more control over their transportation funding while also ensuring the best projects receive the necessary investments.

SEND A MESSAGE

ISTA provides local communities access to a larger share of federal transportation funding by setting aside a portion of statewide transportation money and allowing communities to compete for funds to pay for their innovative and ambitious transportation projects. Those awarded funds will provide the greatest return on investment and ensure every dollar is spent on the most cost effective project.

For more information on the DRIVE Act, you can read Transportation for America’s statement on the bill on our blog, as well as read our list of the top 10 things to know about the bill.

Congress returns in September after Labor Day so stay tuned for further information.

Help fill your Representative’s inbox to tell them to support this critical proposal.

House takes first step in process to keep the nation’s transportation fund solvent

For the first time since 2012, the House of Representatives held a hearing focused on funding the nation’s transportation system. Today’s hearing focused on the elephant in the room: how to adequately fund a transportation bill that’s longer than just a few months. While it’s a relief to see the funding issue finally getting airtime in the House, keeping the nation’s transportation fund solvent is only half of the problem — we also need to update the broken federal program that isn’t meeting our country’s needs.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee tasked with finding the money to pay for a transportation bill, took the most obvious funding solution off the table — raising the federal gasoline excise tax — right at the start of the hearing as the gallery was still getting comfortable in their seats, deflating some members of the committee who were eager to at least discuss this option.

“We are not raising gas taxes‚ plain and simple,” he said, while adding later that the House “does need to find a real solution, a permanent solution. We are all ears.” Chairman Ryan suggested that repatriation of overseas profits (a one-time, non-transportation user fee fix) or giving states more authority could be possible solutions, but a gas tax increase is off the table.

Before the hearing, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) held a press conference featuring a coalition of groups who support his bill to raise new revenue in the House by phasing in a 15-cent increase in the gas tax. Civil engineers, general contractors, roadbuilders, public transportation operators and T4America director James Corless spoke at the press conference to support Rep. Blumenauer’s case that Congress’ inaction is negatively impacting our nation’s economy and action is long overdue.

James corless blumenauer
T4America director James Corless speaking at this morning’s press conference

Rep. Blumenauer carried his momentum from the morning press conference into the hearing an hour later.

“We’re not keeping up our end of the bargain for the 50 percent of capital spending on big projects that comes from the federal government. We haven’t made any meaningful adjustment since 1993 to the gas tax, relying on short-term fixes, gimmicks – and no matter how you slice it, adding to the deficit,” Rep. Blumenauer said in his prepared remarks.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (R-TX) concurred. “What is missing from our transportation policy is money – revenue. We cannot build these highways with fairy dust,” Rep. Doggett (R-TX) said.

Rep. Renacci (R-OH), who has put forward a separate plan to index the gas tax to inflation and set up a mechanism to provide long-term transportation funding, noted that “short-term fixes cost money in delay and uncertainty.” He shared a story about meeting with constituents, including some tea party members, on transportation issues. He said that they told him, “‘Quit going to the general fund and taking dollars…what you’re doing is passing it onto our children and grandchildren. What I’d be willing to do is pay a user fee as long as I get my roads and bridges fixed.’ We have to come up with a long-term solution, we can’t continue to go down this path,” he said.

As Rep. Bob Dold (R-IL) from the Chicago area noted on the topic of buying new railcars for the CTA and Metra, “Do we buy them one at a time or ten at a time? I can get a far better deal if I buy them ten at a time,” he said. When agencies can’t reliably put together a multi-year budget because they have no idea what to expect from the federal government, projects can begin to cost more than they should.

Following on the heels of today’s Ways & Means hearing, the Senate Finance Committee is holding a hearing of its own tomorrow on transportation funding.

We can hope that the newfound willingness to discuss the challenging revenue question will lead members of Congress to build consensus around a funding proposal suitable for the nation’s need. However, simply raising new funding to pour into a broken system isn’t going to get us where we need to go either — we need to fix the broken system and update it with the kinds of policies that ensure every dollar invested by taxpayers provides the greatest benefits for the economy and our communities. It’s not enough to simply raise money and spend it on the same processes that created the crisis we find ourselves in today. America can do better, and it’s important that the decisionmakers understand this fact.

On that policy question, eyes are quickly turning to the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, which is responsible for the highway title — the largest portion of the bill. They are planning to release and mark up their successor to MAP-21, a six-year bill, next Wednesday, June 24th.

We are counting on the Senate EPW Committee to release a bill that can maintain our current system, complete the transportation network, incentivize the strategic investments that can provide access to opportunity for all Americans and best improve connections within the cities and towns that drive our economy.

Continuing and improving a nascent process to measure the performance of our transportation investments would allow us to better ensure that our limited resources bring the best return. And a forward-looking plan to direct more of that money down to where it’s needed most would be a great companion to any plan to shore up the nation’s transportation funding.

We’re now looking to the Senate to make progress on finding a long-term funding solution, but also to make the policy changes we so urgently need to ensure those dollars are well spent.

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.