House votes short-term extension for transportation programs

WASHINGTON -- With Congress distracted by health care and disagreeing over transportation policy, the House was forced Wednesday to take emergency steps to keep key air and highway programs going through the end of the year.

The House vote, 335-85, assured that Federal Aviation Administration programs and ongoing highway and public transit programs will continue operating through the end of the year. Without the action, those programs would shut down Sept. 30.

House Republican leaders launched an unsuccessful effort to defeat even the three-month extension of the highway bill, saying they wanted the measure brought up under a format where they could get lawmakers on the record opposing an increase in the federal gas tax.

But about half the GOP members voted for the bill, which will keep highway construction and repair projects employing tens of thousands of workers from being brought to an abrupt halt.

The Senate still has to comply with the three-month extensions.

The measure on the bill was necessary, said Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., because Congress has not moved on his six-year, $500 billion proposal to revitalize infrastructure programs.

"Along the way there has been a failure of political will," he said.

Raising the gas tax, which has been unchanged since 1993 despite steep rises in construction costs, is one of the options being considered for paying for Oberstar's bill. The tax now stands at 18.4 cents a gallon, or 24.3 cents for diesel, and is no longer sufficient to provide the federal highway trust fund the revenue needed to pay for infrastructure projects.

But lawmakers have resisted any bump in the tax. "What we are asking for is a public rejection of increasing the gas tax," House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia said in urging that the measure be defeated.

The White House and the Senate are seeking an 18-month extension of the current highway bill, pushing past the midterm elections decisions that will have to be made on how to pay for what everyone agrees is a pressing need to deal with the nation's congested, crumbling and unsafe infrastructure.

Lawmakers have also been reluctant to take up another massive federal spending bill within months after approving a $787 billion economic stimulus act and considering health care changes that could cost in the range of $1 trillion.

The House also voted by voice to extend FAA programs for three months, marking the seventh time in the past two years that it has had to take emergency measures to keep aviation programs operating.

The Senate, which has struggled to get an FAA bill to the floor this year, is expected to follow suit.

The delay is partly the result of policy differences, partly an outcome of the preoccupation of the Senate -- including the Senate Finance Committee, which has a role in crafting the FAA bill -- with the health care issue.

It is "really unfortunate that we have to do it this way," Oberstar said of the bill keeping FAA programs afloat.

He noted that the House last May passed a bill committing $50 billion in aviation and airport funding, "the biggest investment in aviation in the history of the program." That includes funds for a new satellite-based air traffic control system that will make the nation's airways significantly safer and more efficient.

There are remaining policy differences with the Senate -- on passenger rights issues, U.S. inspections of overseas aircraft repair stations and House provisions making it easier for unions to organize FedEx nonaviation employees. But Rep. John Mica of Florida, top Republican on the transportation committee, said they could be resolved quickly if the Senate acts on the legislation.

"It's critical for having policy in place that runs one of the key safety regulatory agencies in our government vital to the aviation industry and the economy of our nation," he said.

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The FAA bill is H.R. 3607.

The highway bill is H.R. 3617.

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