When Congress left town before the November election, a House-Senate Conference on the reauthorization of TEA-21 was deadlocked over the issue of the funding level for the six-year (fiscal 2004 – 2009) legislation. House GOP leaders had asserted that the highest level which could be supported by the White House was $284 billion in guaranteed funding and $299 billion in contract authority. (It must be noted that the only official word directly from the White House has been that anything above $256 billion would trigger a veto.) Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada), were insisting on a funding level of $318 billion when time ran out. The post-election session did not deal with the issue at all.

As the 109th Congress convenes, conventional wisdom has it that the number on the table (284/299) when Congress left in October represents the high water mark for potential outcomes in 2005. Rumor abounds that the Bush administration’s budget may well ratchet the number back to $256 billion as part of their effort to reduce the budget deficit by half over a five-year period. Senate Democrats, chastened by the November election results, are indicating they will be picking their fights carefully this year and that this issue may not be one of them. All of this would appear to indicate that the funding situation is not going to get any better and may get worse as time goes on.

Faced with this emerging reality, key players on Capitol Hill are looking for options. One approach being considered is to drop fiscal 2004 (now ancient history) from the package altogether and go with either a five-year bill through fiscal 2009 or a six-year bill through fiscal 2010. Extending to 2010 might allow the program to take advantage of additional economic growth which will be assumed in the President’s budget. Changing the years covered by the bill will at the very least cast the funding debate in a new light – moving everyone off the by now tired debate about $256 vs. $284 vs. $318. However, these kinds of changes may only be cosmetic. They will not change the underlying reality that available funds are not sufficient to substantially address the “donor state” problem in the highway program without creating politically unpalatable affects in other states.

Despite these apparent difficulties, committee leaders in the House and Senate have expressed their desire to move quickly to get back to conference on the legislation and have a final product enacted before the May 31 expiration of the current program extension. With the start of a new Congress, all legislation from the old Congress is dead. This means both Houses must pass again a version of reauthorization before the conference can re-start. On the House side, committee staff indicates a bill resembling very closely the TEA-LU legislation passed in the House last year will be re-introduced in the early days of this Congress. A committee mark-up is possible for February, according to staff. Plans on the Senate side are not as clear, but it is reasonable to expect early re-introduction of something close to the Senate-passed version.

Will all of this work produce a multi-year reauthorization in 2005? We have heard a variety of opinions on that question from seasoned Members and staff on the Hill. There are those who believe the odds are strong that further extensions will be required and may continue into 2006. Others are more optimistic. Stay tuned.