Motion to Go to Conference on H.R. 22, Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Since 2009, this Congress has failed to make some hard choices. As a result, highway, transit, and safety programs have limped along with flat funding. States and transit authorities have been unable to plan major, long-term projects as they watch this Congress extend these programs for a few months at a time, often waiting until midnight of the next government shutdown, and then extend them again with short-term patches.

The Federal gas tax, which pays for these highway and public transit investments, has not been raised in 22 years. Its purchasing power has fallen 40 percent.

And for all the progress we made last week under Speaker Ryan in terms of allowing policy amendments to be offered to the bill, let us all recognize that the Republican leadership blocked every single proposed amendment regarding the funding inadequacies in this bill.

Democrats and Republicans offered a wealth of options to fund the program: increasing the gas tax; using repatriated revenue to increase investment in the United States; creating a bipartisan, bicameral task force to address the shortfall in the highway trust fund; and simply indexing the gas tax to account for the cost of inflation.

Regrettably, the Republican leadership, despite all the pledges of openness, would not let this House debate even a single proposal to address the shortfall in the highway trust fund.

Mr. Speaker, we can do better.

Today, I offer a motion to instruct conferees that recognizes that we are woefully underinvesting in our Nation's infrastructure. This motion instructs conferees to adopt the higher funding levels for highway, transit and highway safety programs that are contained in the bipartisan Senate DRIVE Act. The DRIVE Act provides $342 billion over 6 years. That is $17 billion more than the House bill.

The DRIVE Act provides $12 billion more than the House bill over 6 years to reconstruct our highways and rebuild our crumbling bridges. This small increase only begins to deal with the 147,000 structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges in our country. That is, by the way, one out of every four bridges.

This funding will only begin to address the two-thirds of the Nation's roads that are in less than good condition.

The DRIVE Act provides $4.4 billion over 6 years for local transit agencies to help more people move safely to their jobs. This small increase will only begin to address the $86 billion state of good repair backlog that exists nationwide for our local transit agencies.

In 2013, Americans took 10.7 billion public transit trips. Mr. Speaker, many of these were on systems that were built a century ago.

Congestion is a ballooning problem around our country. It affects 42 percent of America's major roads and costs our economy $121 billion a year. The status quo funding in the House bill will only worsen the congestion in our cities and suburbs.

This motion also instructs conferees to include section 1414(b) of the House bill in a final conference report. This section provides a mechanism to automatically adjust investment levels, should additional money come into the trust fund during the 6-year term of this bill.

Additional receipts could come into the trust fund from a number of places. There could be higher-than-anticipated vehicle miles traveled. There could be a bigger infusion into the trust fund from a subsequent act of Congress.

If actual receipts do come into the trust fund exceeding the estimated receipts for the most recently completed year, program levels would automatically be adjusted by the additional amount at the beginning of the next fiscal year. This ensures that any additional funds that Congress makes available can quickly flow to States to invest in badly needed infrastructure projects.

The Secretary would distribute this additional funding proportionately to each of the highway transit and safety programs funded in the highway trust fund authorized in the final conference report.

I urge my colleagues to support this motion.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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