Government Organizations

The Senate Finance Committee is currently marking up what lawmakers have christened the "Highway Investment, Job Creation and Economic Growth Act of 2012," the final component of the Senate's two-year transportation bill. This portion of the bill, put together by committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT), is responsible for the "pay-for" -- identifying approximately $13 billion in funding needed to align the bill's spending with its revenue. As of yesterday the committee had announced only a little more than $10 billion in "found" revenue.

The House Ways and Means committee has just passed a bill that would kick transit out of the highway trust fund, casting aside a 30-year history of providing a dedicated funding source for federal transit programs. Transit instead would be funded by a transfer from the general fund, which would have to be offset by cuts elsewhere to avoid raising the deficit. As US PIRG's Dan Smith said yesterday, this is like saying that transit funding will come from the Tooth Fairy.

While their colleagues in the House were debating more than 80 amendments to a transportation bill, members of the Senate Banking Committee were quietly passing their two-year transit bill with -- get this -- unanimous bipartisan support. The bill includes some reforms -- such as allowing federal funds to be spent on transit operations -- that transit advocates have been pushing for.

In a move that should dispel any remaining thoughts that the House transportation bill [PDF] will ever be signed into law, the Ways and Means Committee announced today that they will try to forbid gas tax revenue from funding transit.

An amendment that would restore the popular Safe Routes to School and Transportation Enhancements programs to the House GOP's transportation bill has just been defeated in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by a vote of 29-27. Supporters of safer biking and walking sent thousands of messages to Congress supporting this amendment in the short time that advocates had to mobilize. In the end, however, the three Republicans who joined the Democrats in favor of the amendment were not enough to deliver a majority. Rep. Tom Petri of Wisconsin, the amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Tim Johnson of Illinois (a co-sponsor), and Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey were the three “yea” votes on the GOP side.

In a seven-hour markup session today, the House Natural Resources Committee approved three bills that would expand oil and natural gas exploration in Alaska and the outer continental shelf, all without bipartisan support.

Transportation leaders, take your best shot. Applications are being accepted for $500 million in federal funding through the fourth round of U.S. DOT's TIGER grants.

The House transportation bill will be marked up by the Transportation & Infrastructure committee tomorrow morning, and advocates are fighting for amendments that would improve the provisions for active transportation and transit.

John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, officially unveiled his committee's transportation bill, the "American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act," at a press conference outside the House wing of the Capitol this afternoon. (All 846 pages of bill text are here: [PDF])