President Barack Obama with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood || photo: White House / streetsblog.org

UPDATE

Late Wednesday, the Senate, in conjunction with a House vote last week, passed a one-month extension of the 2005 transportation law, which would have expired at midnight.

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At midnight Wednesday, the federal transportation law funding national highway and transit programs will expire. Amid a lack of consensus in Congress on what to do—as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has been at odds with both the Senate and the Obama Administration—the current law will almost certainly be extended for one-month. However, it is a short-term fix — an even shorter-term fix than the three-month extension passed in the House last week or the proposed 18-month extension in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The federal transportation law is supposed to be re-authorized every six years, although extensions have become commonplace in this process.

House and Senate appropriations committees agreed to the one-month reprieve as a legislative failsafe in order to keep federal transportation funding mechanisms going at 2009 levels, including the Highway Trust Fund, until lawmakers can complete the new budget. The House approved the resolution on Sept. 25. The Senate is expected to pass it sometime before the Wednesday deadline.

That said, there is nothing to suggest that the Congressional impasse that led to the one-month extension will be solved in just a month’s time. The current transportation law, which was finally passed in 2005, had a dozen similar extensions. Simply, Oct. 31 could look a lot like Sept. 30.

Still, more important than Congress and the Administration agreeing on a three-month or 18-month extension is a consensus on a new transportation law. Already, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D., Minn.) has introduced a $450 billion dollar bill that not only increases current federal transportation funding but also restructures some funding practices and reorganizes the Department of Transportation. But, as Congress remains in similar gridlock over healthcare, the Administration has opposed any action on Rep. Oberstar’s legislation. As a result, the majority of the Senate, led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has sided with the President. Moreover, neither the Senate nor the Administration has put forth their own bills to reauthorize federal transportation funding. Though Rep. Oberstar’s bill was introduced in June, nothing guarantees it will be the legislation that passes one-month, three-months or 18-months from now.

More to lose down the road

Even if the one-month extension is approved in the Senate Wednesday, a measure to dissolve $8.7 billion in un-obligated federal highway assistance will be triggered Thursday unless lawmakers act to correct the matter. But, as the one-month resolution is a conference report, both houses must pass it without amendments.

The 18-month extension proposed by Sen. Boxer would repeal the measure, but action on her bill is unlikely to happen before the deadline. There is no companion language in the House extension.

The loss of the $8.7 billion could lead to project cancellations nationwide. Some states can draw on their own reserves to continue work. Overall, states could lose some $3 billion.

Rep. James Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

Every six years the law authorizing national transportation policy and funding needs renewal. The current law expires Sept. 30 — in nine days.

Without some kind of action, legislation to extend the current transportation law by 18 months — already in place in the Senate and endorsed by the Obama administration — would almost certainly have to pass in order ensure transportation funding past the end of the month.

Rep. James Oberstar (D., Minn.), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is staunchly against an 18-month delay. As a result, it is likely he will propose a three-month extension later this week.

This comes after months of pushing for his own plan, to not only reauthorize the transportation bill, but also increase federal funding (from $286 billion in 2005 to a proposed $450 billion) and restructure the practices of the Department of Transportation.

Still, with time running out to pass this new legislation, supporters of Rep. Oberstar’s bill are beginning to accept the idea of an extension of the existing law.

After months of opposing a delay, for example, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, recently said a three-month extension would be “reasonable”.

That said, three months may not be enough time to move a spending bill of this size through a Congress already in gridlock over the health care debate. The House Ways and Means Committee, which must determine the legislation’s funding, has yet to set a date to hear the bill. Moreover, the bill has not been marked up in Rep. Oberstar’s own committee.

With Congress back after a summer recess, President Barack Obama, in an address before both the House and Senate on Wednesday, again made clear that the government’s business at this moment is health care reform.

As a result, major climate legislation has been delayed twice in the Senate by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. At the same time, similar legislation in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee — a $450 billion bill to overhaul transportation funding and policy nationally — has not been put off, at least by Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D., Minn.).

But the Senate, led by Sen. Boxer, has legislation in place — and much farther along than the House transportation bill — to authorize just under $30 billion to extend the current transportation law by another 18 months. This would effectively delay Rep. Oberstar’s legislation with or without his support.

One way or another, action on federal transportation policy needs to come by the end of the month as the current law, which funds transportation projects and programs from mass transit upgrades to road and bridge repair to high speed rail development, expires Sept. 30.

Last month, while on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Rep. Oberstar said:

It is disappointing that after eight years of a Bush administration that said no to robust investment in transportation now the Democratic administration says ‘well not now … 18 months’. The nation doesn’t have 18 months… People need jobs now.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman continued:

We’ve reported our six-year bill out of subcommittee and the week when we come back after Labor Day we’ll report it from full committee… I expect to have it on the floor by the third week of September; $450 billion over the next six years and the administration’s either going to come along or we’re going to roll them over.

Still, a report Thursday by The Wall Street Journal suggests that Rep. Oberstar sees passage of his bill unlikely this fall and that an extension of the current transportation law is likely.