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House T&I Committee Version of TEA LU 2005 Bill - Feb. 2005
for more information, visit http://www.calinst.org/transpo.htm

House Transportation Bill Reintroduced with Support of White House

With fresh backing from the White House, House transportation leaders on February 9, 2005, reintroduced the previously-reported Transportation Equity Act: Legacy for Users (TEALU) highways and transit authorization bill. For the 109th Congress, the bill is now numbered H.R. 3.

According to a statement by the bill's sponsor and House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Chair Don Young (AK), TEALU's policy content is essentially identical to the six-year, $284 billion measure that passed the House with bipartisan support last year. That bill was opposed by Bush Administration officials, who threatened to recommend a veto to kill any proposal that exceeded $263 billion. Ultimately, disagreement over the cost of highway programs thwarted last year's reauthorization effort in conference committee negotiations. After approving a series of minor amendments, mostly technical in nature, House conferees under pressure from the White House and the House leadership rejected the Senate's formal offer to set price limits at $318 billion, as proposed in the Senate's Safe Accountable Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA), and no final deal was struck. The President's 2006 Budget released earlier this week indicated that the White House had acceded to the House figure. "I strongly believe that we have a much better chance of moving this legislation quickly," said Rep. Young, "now that we are working with the same top line funding that the President has endorsed."

Because House leaders have chosen to postpone the House energy bill's consideration, action on TEALU could be accelerated considerably, so long as T&I members can maintain the bipartisan spirit that aided TEALU's completion in the House last year.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair James Inhofe (OK), who has yet to introduce companion legislation in the Senate, was concerned that the House bill's numbers were not satisfactory and planned to continue working with the Senate Finance Committee to find more budget authority.

The House plan would grow authorizations by 42 percent over prior levels contained in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and increase annual highway and transit authorizations from $34.4 billion in 2004 to $41 billion in 2009, and ramp up public transit expenditures from $7.3 billion in 2004 to $10.3 billion in 2009.

Beyond the task of reaching a consensus on overall funding levels lies the thorny problem of providing a fair share of funds to donor states that send greater amounts of money to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) in highway taxes than they receive in federal aid highway program spending. Currently, each state is entitled to a minimum 90.5 percent return on its highway taxes, though members from donor states, led by House Majority Leader Tom Delay (TX), support a higher minimum guarantee. In a controversial move that could generate friction with the White House, Rep. Young opted to retain the Equity Hammer provision in HR. 3, that would force lawmakers to revisit the minimum guarantee issue within two years of a final bill's passage.

Programs driven by the nation's prior surface transportation law known as TEA-21(PL 105-178) would have expired in 2003, were it not for the passage of a number of temporary extensions that maintained authorizations (at TEA-21 growth rates) while Congress continued work on a long term bill. The latest extension is due to expire by the end of this May.

In other news, the President's 2006 spending plan contained $1.53 billion in Federal Transit Administration (FTA) New Starts earmarks under the proposed $7.8 billion transit budget. Four California projects are slated to receive a combined total of $182 million in New Starts funds including: $80 million for the Metro Goldline East Side Extension, $7.7 million for the San Diego Mission Valley East LRT Extension, $12.21 million for the San Diego Oceanside Escondido Rail project, and $81.86 million for the SFO-BART Extension project in San Francisco. New Starts projects are major capital investments to facilitate the establishment of new or extensions of existing fixed guideway routes and facilities costing over $25 million in federal support.
For more information on the new TEALU bill, visit the T&I homepage at: http://www.house.gov/transportation/ .

The project includes two major transportation reports. A paper on California's relationship with federal highway programs is available at http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=467 , and a September 2004 report on federal transit programs is available at http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=550 .

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