On Thursday morning, the STRR Act was passed with a 363-64 vote allocating $261 billion to the nation’s highways, a few $55 billion to public transit and an additional $9 billion for safety programs. The House bill does little to reform the bloated, unsustainable federal highway and transit system.
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Section 1313 of the infrastructure reauthorization bill specifically establishes a pilot program that would allow states to conduct environmental reviews and approve projects under state environmental laws and regulations, instead of through federal laws and regulations.
The Obama administration said in a statement this week it was “encouraged” by the bipartisan effort to enact a highway bill though the measure had “significant shortcomings”. He has said $400 billion over six years is minimum needed to prevent matters from worsening.
Thursday’s House bill more than makes up the projected shortfall – $100 billion, estimated by the Congressional Budget Office – between money in the gas tax fund and the projected costs of necessary transportation maintenance.
“It cuts waste, it prioritizes good infrastructure, it will help create good-paying jobs”. The bill and its many amendments also reauthorized the Export Import Bank’s charter through 2019.
Bottom line: the House highway and transit bill would simply perpetuate a broken system by relying on gimmicks, dubious revenue increases and promises of future action all the while providing for the reauthorization of a defunct slush fund for corporate welfare. Adding oil exports to the highway bill could have defused a White House veto threat against the crude trade provisions and averted a straight up-or-down Senate vote on the issue.
One proposal was to simply raise the gas tax, but House Republicans blocked a vote on that idea – as they, and a few Democrats, have always been reluctant to ask American motorists to pay more at the gas pump. “I want to thank Chairman Shuster and Ranking Members DeFazio and Holmes Norton for all of their hard work completing this bill”. That means other funds had to be found for the Highway Bill, known as the Surface Transportation and Reform Act.
The bill has also become a veritable Christmas Tree with a few 250 amendments, many unrelated to highway funding, being floated.
The bill now goes to a conference committee that will seek to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, possibly bringing a compromise measure back to both floors of Congress before the current legislation expires on November 20.
The House bill already contains a provision (Section 1423) allowing only bulk milk trucks to get special permits from states to carry heavier loads of milk on their interstate highways. No New York House members from either party opposed the bill. House leaders have said the hope to finish the amendment process by week’s end.
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While U.S. PIRG does not have a formal position on raising the gas tax, Olivieri notes that to do so would not be a panacea: Many states have constitutional requirements forcing them to use funding from the gas tax exclusively on highways and roads while allocating nothing to walking infrastructure, bike lanes and public transportation.
