Subcommittees try to figure out how to fund transportation

Two House Ways and Means subcommittees held the first of an expected series of joint hearings to consider revenue options not only to fund the short-term Highway Trust Fund solvency crisis, but also to pay for a multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill.

U.S. Department of Transportation Undersecretary for Policy Roy Kienitz offered the Obama administration’s position on current and future surface transportation investment needs and gave an account of the status of the Highway Trust Fund. Kienitz testified that the highway account of the Highway Trust Fund will require an additional $5-7 billion in order to pay all of its bills on time through the end of the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30. He also stated that the fund will need another $8-10 billion to cover the anticipated cash shortfall through FY 2010. Kienitz recommended that Congress immediately replenish the Highway Trust Fund prior to August, adding that the U.S. DOT is currently projecting that it would have to delay payment of some bills as early as Sept. 4.

Finally, Kienitz recommended that Congress also enact an 18-month extension of the current surface transportation authorization along with a $20 billion cash infusion to sustain the Highway Trust Fund through March 2011.