Highway Bill Expected Soon; Long-Term Funding Uncertain

WASHINGTON — A multiyear highway bill that would ensure funding for infrastructure projects and reform a controversial safety performance scoring program for motor carriers will be unveiled Nov. 30, the top transportation leader in the U.S. House of Representatives said.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is leading the bicameral effort. On Nov. 18, he said congressional staff involved in the crafting of a long-term highway bill will work out differences in the highway bills the House and Senate advanced this year. Their task is to come up with a final bill soon after Thanksgiving.

“We have our differences with the Senate’s bill, but that’s why we’re here,” Shuster said as he oversaw a meeting of transportation negotiators. “We’ve already made some very good progress in working through some of our differences, and I look forward to finishing our work on a final measure that helps improve America’s infrastructure.”

Current authorization of highway programs expires Nov. 30. Congress cleared a short-term funding fix Nov. 19 that would extend funding authority through Dec. 4. The extension of funding authority for the Highway Trust Fund, expected to be signed by President Obama after Transport Topics went to press, is meant to provide lawmakers with additional time to finalize a highway bill.

Shuster added he is confident Congress would send Obama a multiyear highway bill by Dec. 4. That would mark the first time in 10 years policymakers send the White House highway legislation with an authorization longer than two years.

Enacting such legislation into law also would appear as a signature accomplishment for Shuster, whose tenure as committee leader began in 2013.

Senate transportation committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Shuster’s counterpart, acknowledged, “Congress is on the cusp of once again fulfilling its constitutional duty to fund our roads and bridges.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the transportation panel, described an agreement on a highway bill this year as a “moment in history.”

Shuster told TT he would ensure reforms to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program make it in a final multiyear highway bill.

“As we go through the negotiations, we think that some of the reforms that we’ve put in there are positive,” Shuster said.

“That’s what the House position is, and we’re going to work hard to see that it’s there,” Shuster added, regarding the CSA reforms.

The House-passed highway bill would call on FMCSA to make “corrective actions” to CSA. During a congressionally mandated review of CSA by the National Research Council of the National Academies, certain scores would be removed from public view. The Senate-passed highway bill included a similar provision.

American Trucking Associations, as well as many executives in the trucking sector are critical of the CSA scores, claiming the scores inaccurately reflect carriers’ safety records.

The Obama administration and proponents of the program defend the accuracy of the scores.

The House-passed bill also would create a graduated commercial driver license program that would establish a task force designed to kick off the process of allowing drivers between the ages of 19½ and 21 to operate trucks in interstate commerce.

A major sticking point during negotiations involves the funding. A six-year, $325 billion authorization that would include a three-year funding structure is expected to change by Nov. 30. At issue is the degree of reliance on nontraditional sources of revenue to offset transportation projects, such as tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and rates and fees managed by the Federal Reserve.

“I think we need to have a very strong follow on how we’re going to do long-term funding,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), ranking member on the House transportation panel.

Other transportation negotiators were frustrated by the proposed funding structures, referring to them as “short-term gimmicks.”

“Our fathers and our grandfathers paid for the roads and bridges that they built when they built them, and now this generation of members of Congress is asking our children to pay for our roads and bridges,” Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) said. “If we think that this is important enough to buy, it ought to be important enough to pay for.”

Shuster was quick to point out that the highway reauthorization policy bills do not include provisions having to do with twin 33-foot trailers. Those provisions are in the fiscal 2016 transportation funding bills.

“So, again, I don’t think it’ll be in there,” Shuster said, referring to a final highway bill.

Pushback on trucking provisions in the bills during ongoing negotiations is expected from a small group of Senate Democrats who recently called on their chamber’s leaders to prevent a “rollback of safety or consumer protections.”

The senators said passing a long-term highway bill “should not come at the expense of weaker safety and consumer protections” that they say were included in the House-passed bill.