Long-Term Transportation Bill: Deal Reached

After nearly 33 months of short-term funding extensions, House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement regarding the Surface Transportation Bill that will streamline the environmental project review process. A Final Conference Agreement report was submitted to the White House today and is currently awaiting President Obama’s approval.

The new legislation—which is a compromise between the $109 billion two-year bill the Senate approved in March and the three-month bill approved by the House in April—will authorize $79.4 billion for highways, $17.1 billion for transit, $1.4 billion for highway safety programs, as well as funding to last until September of this year.

The bill also includes provisions that will make important changes in surface transportation policy, including accelerating highway and transit project approval and reducing the number of federal surface-transportation programs and funding categories. In addition, a $1.75 billion funding boost will be given to the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act over the next two years, up from just $122 million a year now.

Major cutbacks included:  

•  language that would have allowed quick approval for the Keystone pipeline;
•  a provision that would block the EPA from regulating coal ash as hazardous waste; and
•  $1.4 billion in aid for the Land and Water Conservation Fund

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica called the measure “the jobs bill for the 112^th Congress,” adding that it “provides necessary, real reform that focuses our limited resources on critical infrastructure needs.”