Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus proposed late yesterday that Congress appropriate general funds totaling nearly $27 billion to tide the federal Highway Trust Fund over for 18 months while Congress works out a permanent six year reauthorization of surface transportation funding. The Baucus measure would reimburse the Highway Trust Fund $14.7 billion in lost interest on road construction balances and $4.8 billion in lost interest on mass transit balances as a result of a 1998 prohibition on the fund collecting interest on the money from motor fuel taxes which is the major source of federal revenue for surface transportation construction and repairs.
Baucus proposes removing the ban on Highway Trust Fund balances accruing interest for the benefit of the fund, and also would reimburse the fund $7.3 billion used for emergency projects since 1989.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar is still pressing for a six year reauthorization measure before the current law expires September 30, 2009, but this move in the Senate seems to have doomed any chance of a long term reauthorization bill reaching the floor of both houses before the fiscal year closes.
Baucus proposes removing the ban on Highway Trust Fund balances accruing interest for the benefit of the fund, and also would reimburse the fund $7.3 billion used for emergency projects since 1989.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar is still pressing for a six year reauthorization measure before the current law expires September 30, 2009, but this move in the Senate seems to have doomed any chance of a long term reauthorization bill reaching the floor of both houses before the fiscal year closes.
