Lawmakers Return for a Brief Session; Likely to Pass Short-Term Funding Bill

Federal lawmakers, under pressure to return to their districts before the midterm elections, are likely to quickly advance a short-term funding bill that keeps transportation agencies and other federal programs running for several more months, senior congressional aides told Transport Topics.

Members of Congress have scheduled about two weeks of legislative work when they return to Capitol Hill from their summer recess Sept. 8, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has indicated he plans to schedule a vote on a continuing resolution to keep the government operating through the midterm elections and into the post-election lame-duck session.

The GOP-led House and Senate Democrats in control of that chamber are expected to agree to a deal that maintains funding at current levels and keeps the government running beyond Sept. 30, in order to avoid a shutdown. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and other agencies with jurisdiction over the trucking industry would be funded by a stopgap bill.

While Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee that directs funding in the House, has urged colleagues to give the traditional yearlong funding process a chance, he said he recognizes scheduling constraints this fall because many lawmakers are preoccupied with re-election efforts.

“We’ve only got two weeks in September; we’ve got to pass a CR, and it’ll be a crowded schedule in September,” Rogers told reporters.

Sources said there appears to be enough support in the Democratic-controlled Senate to advance a House-passed stopgap measure that would keep the government funded for the early part of fiscal 2015. However, Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) — Rogers’ counterpart — has indicated her goal of advancing a catchall funding bill for every federal agency. That kind of bill is known as an omnibus.

“When we come back in September, I’m going to make another effort to get us to an omnibus,” Mikulski told reporters.

But to advance a long-term omnibus, Mikulski would be up against the wishes of many members of Congress who have said they are more interested in devoting their time to the campaign trail. Also, recent efforts to advance full-year spending bills in the Senate have been blocked by Republicans, who complain that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not allowed debate for their legislative proposals on the chamber’s floor.

Mikulski has warned that the constant reliance on short-term funding extensions and temporary stopgap funding bills contributes to delays in long-term transportation infrastructure funding.

As must-pass legislation, the stopgap continuing resolution is an ideal vehicle to attach programs that are about to expire, such as the Export-Import Bank onSept. 30. A number of U.S. companies, including trucking firms, tout the bank’s lending assistance, and those companies are lobbying to overcome opposition by the GOP’s tea party faction to reauthorizing the bank. But House leaders say they plan to prevent any type of attachments to the bill not re­lated to funding.

Even if Congress passes a stopgap measure, there is no guarantee lawmakers will tackle a long-term transportation funding bill before the current short-term funding boost expires in May 2015.

Ken Orski, the publisher of a national transportation newsletter, said that, with the Republicans likely controlling the Senate next year and the 2016 presidential elections casting a shadow over any proposal to raise taxes, “there will be a huge temptation for Congress to kick the can down the road once again” on transportation funding.