Key GOP Senator Plans to Advance 5-Year Highway Funding Bill in 2015
By Eugene Mulero, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the Jan. 5 print edition of Transport Topics. The Senate Republican expected to take over a key transportation panel Jan. 6 said he plans to advance a five-year highway bill to ensure there’s funding for infrastructure projects that benefit the trucking industry.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Environment and Public Works panel’s next chairman, said the reauthorization of a 2012 highway law that expires in May also would include proposals to streamline environmental reviews for construction projects.
Inhofe said the bill could resemble the 2005 reauthorization of surface transportation programs, which extended highway polices for five years. He said he will push to have mandates under the National Environmental Policy Act streamlined.
“We have to give that top priority,” Inhofe told reporters in December, adding that the law would keep many provisions already agreed to by the panel’s outgoing chairwoman, Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
Although the EPW panel unanimously approved a long-term renewal for highway programs in 2014, that bill failed to advance to the president’s desk.
The next bill also would need to include a proposal for a sustainable funding program for the Highway Trust Fund account. Several Democratic senators are expected to continue to push for an increase in the 18.40-cent gasoline tax and 24.40-cent diesel tax. Republican leaders oppose raising fuel taxes.
“We have to have a longer and more expensive bill, but don’t ask me how that’s going to happen yet,” Inhofe said.
While there’s potential for passing a multiyear highway bill before the May deadline, many observers expect lawmakers will approve another short-term funding extension for the trust fund, as they did last summer.
In July, Congress cleared a nearly $11 billion measure to keep the fund solvent through May. The bill relied on “pension smoothing,” which allows companies to minimize contributions for their pension plans.
During 2015, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which will be led by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) probably will need to consider the White House’s nominee to run the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Scott Darling is managing the agency as acting administrator.
Obama also will have to resubmit his nominations of Therese McMillan to head the Federal Transit Administration and Carlos Monje to become assistant secretary for transportation policy, because they were not confirmed in the 113th Congress.
Sponsors of legislation that died in the previous Congress have to try again this year. For instance, Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) is expected to press again on his bill that would tap U.S. multinational corporations’ earnings held overseas to pay for a multiyear transportation measure.
Also, with funding for the De-partment of Homeland Security expiring in February, expect congressional leaders to feud over transportation priorities when debate over spending is revisited.
