Reauthorization

The House GOP bill, drafted with significant input from Speaker John Boehner's office, would eliminate mass transit's dedicated funding stream, first signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1982. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former House Republican, has called it "the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service."

Did John Boehner and and John Mica overreach with their proposal to strip dedicated funding for transit, cycling, and walking in the House transportation bill? That's the question observers have been asking since House GOP leaders sprung this politicized legislation in committee last week.

The Senate picked the right day to make themselves look good by comparison.

The transportation-plus-drilling bill that John Boehner and company are trying to ram through the House is an attack on transit riders, pedestrians, cyclists, city dwellers, and every American who can't afford to drive everywhere. Under this bill, all the dedicated federal funding streams for transit, biking, and walking would disappear, leading to widespread service cuts and more injuries and deaths on American streets. But to hear the Republican-controlled Transportation and Infrastructure Committee tell it, they're not harming anyone. In a statement, committee spokesperson Josh Harclerode told Transportation Nation earlier this week:

The House GOP's transportation bill is legislation only Big Oil can love. By eviscerating dedicated transit funds, killing programs that support safe streets, and linking transportation funding to oil drilling in the Arctic, the bill has managed to alienate everyone from environmental advocates to the ultra-conservative Club for Growth.

The Senate Finance Committee is currently marking up what lawmakers have christened the "Highway Investment, Job Creation and Economic Growth Act of 2012," the final component of the Senate's two-year transportation bill. This portion of the bill, put together by committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT), is responsible for the "pay-for" -- identifying approximately $13 billion in funding needed to align the bill's spending with its revenue. As of yesterday the committee had announced only a little more than $10 billion in "found" revenue.

John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, officially unveiled his committee's transportation bill, the "American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act," at a press conference outside the House wing of the Capitol this afternoon. (All 846 pages of bill text are here: [PDF])

All eyes are on the House side of Capitol Hill today in anticipation of the Republicans' grand unveiling of their American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act at 3:00 p.m. But last night, some enduring questions about the Senate's transportation bill finally got some answers. Senators Tim Johnson and Richard Shelby, respectively the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, released a summary of the Federal Public Transportation Act of 2012, providing a preliminary guide to how the Senate will treat transit [PDF].

For the 112th Congress, the path to passing a new transportation bill has been full of starts and stops, partisan politics and low expectations. While Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently said he doesn't expect a multi-year bill to pass this Congress, livable streets advocates should still be on alert in the weeks ahead. Momentum is building behind bills in the House and Senate, and there are strong indications that the bills could advance quickly in the coming days.