ISTEA Reauthorization Likely Not Timely

By: Will Wilkins

The reason I, along with many others here "inside the Beltway," am drawing that conclusion is that neither the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure nor the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works has scheduled a session to formally approve reauthorization. Congress will be in recess beginning the first of August, and will not return until September at which time there is still no guarantee that reauthorization legislation will be on the front burner.

Part of the reason for the delay stems from disagreement between the House and Senate over what is the best way to craft legislation providing significant increases in overall funding levels.

The funding levels are confined by the parameters set under the budget agreement now being worked out. This agreement would restrict federal road and bridge funding to a level of about $22 billion to $23 billion a year.

House Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman Bud Schuster (R-Pa.) apparently has decided to play a waiting game. He has discussed at various times the idea of putting forth a one-year program in order to wait and see what happens with the ever improving economy and its impact on the deficit. He also has floated the idea of a three-year plan, which would generate significantly increased highway funding by spending all of the money during the first three years of the program.

The Senate leaders-Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.), Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)-all have indicated they will not support either a one-year or a three-year plan.

Both the Senate and House are pushing for increased funding, but the disagreement on how to get there could result in their missing the deadline.

We all know this would not be the first time that such a deadline was missed. In 1986, it took until April 1987 to get a bill passed over President Reagan's veto because of the demonstration projects that it included. Congress again missed the deadline by a few months when it passed the current ISTEA legislation in 1991. And again in 1995, Congress missed the Sept. 30 deadline for approving legislation to enact the National Highway System.

As it has in the past, The Road Information Program (TRIP) is gearing up to take action as the deadline approaches. We are sending surveys out to the state DOTs asking them to identify the impact a delay would have on the nation's highway system and to identify specific projects that may be affected as a result of any delay. We will then release that information to the news media to generate coverage in targeted states.

Wilkins is the executive director of The Road Information Program. You may write him in care of the editor.