Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Federal Stimulus

As Yet Another House Proposal Dies In Utero, Boehner Looks to Senate Bill

12:29 PM EST on March 8, 2012

The original six-year House transportation bill had funding levels that were too low, so House leaders axed that and came up with a fairy tale bill in which oil drilling would pay for higher transportation spending levels. Then they decided to kick transit funding out of that bill, which didn't fly. So they thought about replacing the whole kit and kaboodle with an 18-month bill, but no one liked that either.

As of this morning, Speaker John Boehner was supposedly trying to round up votes for another five-year bill. It looks like he couldn't find them, according to Fox News reporter Chad Pergram, so now the House may take up something more like the Senate's 18-month bill:

The five-year bill that Boehner tried and failed to get his GOP colleagues to pass yesterday preserved dedicated funding for transit, but it didn't really solve any of the other contentious issues with the previous bills (except, thankfully, for the double-decker horse trailer issue.) It kept oil drilling, which Democrats oppose, and didn't lower the $260 billion price tag, which conservatives bristle at.

Perhaps the bill’s downfall, however, was leadership’s commitment to keeping it earmark-free. Though many analysts would call that a noble route, it leaves members without specific projects in their districts that they can use to sell the bill to their constituents. Ironically, without some local pork thrown in, a federal transportation bill looks like a big hunk of Washington pork to many members of Boehner's caucus.

No one in House leadership wants to vote for the Senate bill, but that appears to be their only option, as yet another internal proposal dies. The House could try to pass an 18-month or two-year extension, but Politico reports that such a measure would have a “rocky road to passage.” It would basically implement the Senate bill’s funding levels (or close to it) but without a way of paying for it, leaving the Highway Trust Fund vulnerable to insolvency before the extension even expired.

One way or another, it looks like an 18-month bill -- basically a glorified extension -- has a path to passage now.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Why We Care About Some Transportation Tragedies More Than Others

Why do we respond to major transportation disasters with so much urgency — and why don't we count our collective car crash epidemic among them?

March 28, 2024

The Toll of History: MTA Board Approves $15 Congestion Pricing Fee

New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing tolls are one historic step closer to reality after Wednesday's 11-1 MTA board vote. Next step: all those pesky lawsuits.

March 28, 2024

Take Thursday’s Headlines Home, Country Roads

Heat Map reports on why rural Americans are resisting electric vehicles, and why it might not matter much for the climate.

March 28, 2024

Guest Commentary: Traffic Engineers Must Put Safety Over Driver Throughput

No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken.

March 27, 2024
See all posts