House Plans Road-Bill Hearing; DOT Leaders to Update Agenda

This story appears in the Jan. 13 print edition of Transport Topics.

Transportation funding and truck safety will be thrust into the spotlight this week as the U.S. House of Representatives convenes its first hearing on a new highway bill and Department of Transportation leaders make several public addresses.

On Jan. 14, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s hearing will focus on how the United States pays for highways and other transportation modes. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Stuart Levenick of Caterpillar Inc. are due to speak at the hearing.

The Congressional Budget Office has said the Highway Trust Fund and public transit accounts will be insolvent after the current funding law, MAP-21, expires on Sept. 30.

It’s unclear, though, whether in an election year Congress can agree on a new reauthorization bill.

“I think the odds are very long that they’ll do both of those things in 2014,” Joshua Schank, president of Washington think tank the Eno Center for Transportation, said of the trust fund and bill. “That doesn’t mean that they won’t make progress towards those things in 2014.”

Carl Davis, senior transportation policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said: “A temporary reauthorization wouldn’t surprise me at all in an election year.”

Congress passed nine temporary extensions before finally approving MAP-21 in 2012.

On the same day as the hearing, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is due to provide updates on MAP-21 mandates and the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

The event, which takes place during the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting, in Washington, D.C., includes a keynote address by Administrator Anne Ferro.

The agency is expected soon to issue a new rule on electronic logging devices. In its most recent update on significant rulemaking, FMCSA also said a rule creating a clearinghouse for driver drug and alcohol test results would be released this month and a rule on speed limiters would be issued in June.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is the featured speaker during TRB’s luncheon Jan. 15. At a Texas Transportation forum Jan. 6, he said that if federal highway money disappears, states increasingly will build toll roads.

“Governments aren’t confident that the funding is going to be there or the support isn’t going to be there for them to get these projects done,” Foxx told the group. If the public objects to tolls, he added, it ought to tell its leaders to find better sources of funding.

The day after Foxx’s appearance at TRB, the National Transportation Safety Board is scheduled to release what it calls its “Most Wanted List” of safety initiatives.

Before any of this unfolds in Washington, FMCSA is holding a listening session Jan. 13 on how new carriers, brokers and freight forwarders should be tested for industry knowledge, another mandate contained in MAP-21. The session will be part of the American Bus Association meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

In advance of the hearing and press events, American Trucking Associations last week issued a call for lawmakers and policymakers to act on the rulemakings and on other issues.

“We hope our leaders in Washington will take the necessary steps to make our roads safer and improve the flow of goods in our economy,” said ATA President Bill Graves.

ATA also called for a more precise definition of large trucks, and for FMCSA to address crash accountability so the trucking industry’s safety record “can be more accurately measured and understood.”

The federation also urged policymakers to “use data and science, rather than emotions, when reviewing and establishing truck size-and-weight regulations.”

ATA called on lawmakers and policymakers to “identify sustainable, efficient and reliable funding for our nation’s roads and bridges rather than seeking out the ‘easy money’ of tolls and privatization.”

At the same time ATA was pressing for action in Congress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was issuing a similar call.

“The Chamber will work for a multiyear reauthorization of the nation’s core surface transportation program, which expires at the end of September,” chamber President Thomas Donohue said Jan. 8 in his annual address on the State of American Business.

Staff Reporter Eric Miller contributed to this report.