Highway Trust Fund Legislation Stumbles Again

Hopes for passage of any long term Highway Trust Fund reauthorization legislation faded further this week as the Senate stumbled and fumbled action on its $41.6 billion per year, two year version of the measure. Current Trust Fund taxing and spending authority expires March 31, 2012, when the eighth band aid short term extension provision expires. The House version of the long term reauthorization bill, proposing $34.6 billion/year for five years, fell apart completely amid political warfare over its details and never came to a floor vote.

March 6 the Senate failed to vote cloture on its version of the bill, amid Republican desires to continue attaching amendments respecting non-germane issues like birth control insurance coverage, the Keystone XL pipeline environmental review, airborne emission controls on operating boilers, and offshore oil drilling. So far those Senate amendments have all failed, but the interminable Senate debate continues on every sort of proposed amendment any Senator hopes to attach to one of the few “must pass” bills of this session.

With $110 million per day in motor fuel tax revenues hanging in the balance, it seems likely another band aid temporary extension is in the offing until Congressional leaders put an end to their interminable deadlock over unrelated legislative initiatives. Meanwhile, unemployment in the construction industry remains at 17.7%, with no construction job promoting legislative relief in sight. The Congressional Budget Office estimates failure of a long term reauthorization with new revenue sources will bankrupt the Trust Fund near the end of this fiscal year.

According to California Senator Barbara Boxer, 1.8 million existing construction jobs and 1.0 million new construction jobs hang in the balance, while Congress twiddles its thumbs.

Highway Trust Fund Battle Lines Reemerge – More Potholes On The Way

Shortly after his first State of the Union message, President Obama proposed a $550 billion six year reauthorization of the federal Highway Trust Fund. It didn’t pass Congress. Many industry experts labeled that proposal as woefully inadequate to meet even present infrastructure construction, repair and maintenance needs. Since then infrastructure construction funding in the federal budget has been accomplished by a series of interim appropriation extensions, a few months at a time.

Earlier this week two bills emerged from Congressional committees which would provide more or less long term appropriations for the Highway Trust Fund, though at levels far beneath the amounts Obama initially proposed, despite the fact American infrastructure continues to fall deeper and deeeper into disrepair as state and local government budgets are strained by declining revenues and burgeoning human sustenance needs.

Chairman John Mica’s (R. Fla) House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported out the 847 page HR 7, dubbed the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012, which includes appropriations of $138.5 billion for the Highway Trust Fund over the next for years or about $34.6 billion each year: a mere 37.8% of the amount President Obama couldn’t get through a Democratic Congress. Chairman Max Baucus’ (D. Mont.) Senate Finance Committee reported out the 632 page SB 1813, entitled the Highway Investment, Job Creation and Economic Growth Act of 2012,  which includes appropriations totalling $83.3 billion over only the next 2 years, or about $41.6 billion each year, a somewhat more ambitious 45.4% of President Obama’s initial annual request.

Both pieces of legislation are peppered with various anti-pork and anti-earmark provisions, which could well steal the spotlight from the awesome decreases in spending levels. Conservative think tanks are already assaulting the meagre provisions of funds for hiking trails, bicycle paths and scenic preservation construction – work often subbed out to minority and woman owned small businesses to meet the 10% small business set aside requirements in both measures. This is less an assault on highway beautification than it is an attack on minority and women construction business set asides. These public opinion campaigns, couched as “living within our means” policy, are in reality ambushes laid against the progress in the construction industry which public funding set asides have enabled women and minority owned businesses to achieve.

Whatever the ultimate conference committee version of Highway Trust Fund reauthorization may look like, I predict it will be a long time coming, and be woefully underfunded. Meanwhile, with the wintertime freeze/thaw cycle in full swing, we will be seeing more and more potholes on our streets and highways while Congress endlessly debates these measures.

Congressional Gridlock Makes Congress Look Silly

So far this congressional session, beginning in January 2009, the House of Representatives has passed 420 bills on which the Senate has failed to take any action one way or the other. The bills awaiting Senate action include many which would have salutary impact on the American economy, and some, like a bill requiring auditing of the $20 billion BP oil spill claim fund, which should be completely non-controversial. That’s one bill for nearly every Congressman which sits on a shelf awaiting action in the Senate. We should all be angry about this, and right now House members are angrier than most of us that their work is clogged up in Senate partisanship.

Congressional Schedule To Extend Through Mid-December

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced late yesterday that he expects your Congressman will be home for Christmas, but not much sooner. Hoyer said on the House floor that he would do everything possible to be sure the House wraps up its agenda by the end of the second week in December, rather than the original House adjournment target of October 30. He doesn't expect to overwork the assembled Congressmen too much, however, promising them a week off for Veterans Day and another week at Thanksgiving, unless they are still debating health care reform at those times.
Speaking of health care reform, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has low expectations of what will be in the final conference committee version of health reform legislation. "The real bill will be written by Democratic leaders in a closed-to-the-public conference room somewhere in the Capitol," McConnell predicted. "The reall bill will be another 1,000 page, trillion dollar experiment that slashes a half-trillion dollars from seniors' Medicare, raises taxes on American families by $400 billion, increases health care premiums, and vastly expands the role of the federal government in the personal health care decisions of every American."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expects to bring a bill to the Senate floor the first week in November, and a House bill is expected on the floor of that chamber a week sooner. Of course, no one at all knows yet what will be in either measure, and even greater mystery shrouds what may come out of a conference committee after each house has passed a bill. Congressman Gerry Connolly of Virginia left a Thursday morning caucus meeting telling reporters that the proposed tax on "Cadillac" health insurance policies is "dead as a doornail," and that support in the House is growing for a "windfall profits" tax on health insurance companies to fund the House reform measure.

Budget Committees Begin '10 Resolutions

Next week House Budget Vice Chair Allyson Schwartz and Senate Budget Chair Kent Conrad expect to begin work separately on fiscal 2010 budget resolutions. Both committees await release of CBO's final estimates based on President Obama's proposals released earlier this month. CBO Predicts a budget deficit for '09 totaling about $1.7 trillion, including the recently passed economic stimulus appropriations.

Once CBO releases its final numbers, the Senate and House will insert numbers into their resolutions in preparation for April action on the full budget from the White House. Keep a close watch on the final budget presentation for more infrastructure construction spending, and for tax provisions which may be imposed on construction businesses. Also, some compromise will be included on treatment of highway and airport "trust fund" spending in the out years of the ten year budget Obama intents to present.