More Time Needed To Complete Highway Reauthorization?
Congress is looking to extend the current highway authorization law for four more months — until the end of June — while it negotiates a compromise over funding and expenditures for the next six years.
This is the second extension of the massive bill that sets the federal government's surface transportation policy. It was due to have been passed last September, but Congress and the Bush administration have been at odds over how much to spend and where to get the money.
On the spending side, Jim Tymon, a staffer on the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee, predicted a compromise between the $375 billion House bill, and the $318 billion Senate bill. Funding is somewhat more problematic: While Rep. Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, continues to push for a fuel tax increase, President Bush remains adamantly opposed.
Tymon suggested that the compromise might look for ways to come up with the money without raising taxes, including, perhaps, greater use of toll roads. Under consideration: allowing states to add a voluntary toll option to their High Occupancy Vehicle lanes, so single occupants could pay to drive in faster lanes; and allowing tolls to be collected on expansion lanes of the Interstate System.
Meanwhile, Congress finally passed a highway spending bill for this fiscal year. It, too, was due last October but work was not completed until late January.
The law forbids the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from spending any money on enforcing its new hours of service rules on utility, TV and film operations (see related story). It also contains funding for a variety of ongoing truck safety programs, such as screening new entrants into the business, inspection facilities along the Mexican border and improvements in the commercial drivers license program.
Washington Report continued...
