We have learned that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee plans to introduce a draft of their six year highway and transit reauthorization bill on November 19th. The draft bill will include placeholder amendments, allowing members to add high priority projects and other funding related measures at a later date.

The bill is expected to contain $375 billion in funding for surface transportation programs over the next six years. In May, the Bush Administration introduced SAFETEA, which only proposed $247 billion in funding over the same period. The Senate is likely to approve $311 billion in funding for highway and transit programs over the next six years.

The House bill will provide highway programs with roughly $300 billion over six years, while transit programs receive about $75 billion. Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and ranking member James Oberstar (D-Minnesota) are counting on revenue enhancements to finance the exponential increase in highway and transit funding over the next six years. Both Young and Oberstar, along with most committee members support raising and indexing the federal gas tax. However, the House Ways and Means Committee, which will be charged with writing the tax provisions of the reauthorization bill opposes raising or indexing the gas tax. Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-California) has yet to relent in his fierce opposition to raising the gas tax to generate additional revenue for the highway trust fund. Also, the White House and House GOP leadership have expressed their opposition to hiking the gas tax, much to the chagrin of Chairman Young. Young will need a revenue enhancement to finance the level of funding his bill is proposing. If Thomas does not capitulate and Young does not back away from his proposed $375 billion funding level, the bill may stall on the House floor.

On the Senate side, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs was expected to move the transit portion of the reauthorization bill soon after the Senate EPW Committee completed work on the highway bill. However, in a press release sent out on Wednesday, Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) and ranking member Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland) said their committee would not markup the transit portion of reauthorization until “an appropriate source of resources is identified to pay” for it. Committee aides have recently commented that a bill is ready to go, but first the Senate Finance Committee must approve a funding package totaling $56.5 billion without authorizing the use of bonds, which the administration vehemently opposes. The Finance Committee will have to establish a funding mechanism that results in additional revenue for the highway trust fund. The committee will not approve a funding proposal that raises or indexes the gas tax, which limits their options. Staff members on the Finance Committee acknowledge the difficulty that lies ahead and say they are not close to producing a financing mechanism.