Sean Barry

Senate transpo bill promising

Transportation for America Communications Associate, Jul 20, 11.

Tagged with transportation, reauthorization

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) released a bipartisan outline today of its transportation bill, titled Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, or MAP-21. The outline highlights “key areas” of the legislation’s highway title but remains vague on details. The transit title and financing components of the bill are under the jurisdiction of other committees and are not included.

The emphasis on bipartisanship indicates that the Committee’s “big four” — Chairman Barbara Boxer (above), Ranking Member Jim Inhofe and Senators Max Baucus and David Vitter — are in accord on the bill’s skeleton. This cooperation paints a stark contrast with the unusually partisan release of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee proposal, where Committee Democrats apparently were shut out.

While the devil truly is in the legislative details, the Senate outline is already more promising than the House proposal, unveiled by T&I committee Chair John Mica (R-FL). Mica deserves credit for moving the ball forward on authorization, but his six-year proposal fails to articulate a vision or set the right priorities for a 21st century transportation system, and the 35 percent across-the-board spending cut mandated by his caucus leaders would severely strain our existing infrastructure and transit systems. Doing more of the same, with less money, on a faster treadmill is insufficient and a non-starter.
The Senate EPW bill authorizes just two years of funding, rather than six, but at current levels plus inflation. The outline does not specify any revenue sources outside of gas tax receipts from the Highway Trust Fund but does seek to attain the “optimum achievable authorization depending on the resources available and in a way that does not increase the deficit and can achieve bipartisan support.”

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