New Congressional House Rules Aimed at Fiscally Responsible Transportation Spending
COST Commentary: Below are two related articles by Randal O’Toole addressing House rule changes which should have a positive impact on curbing pork-barrell transportation spending in the next Transportation Authorization Bill later in 2011.
Passing the Test
by Randal O’Toole in Antiplanner blog, Jan 6, 2011
This week, the new Republican-dominated House passed one of the first tests of its ability to promote fiscal sanity in the face of interest-group lobbying. On Tuesday, the House voted in new rules that govern its own operations, and one of those rules struck at the heart of recent transportation pork barreling.
Even though federal highway funding comes out of gas taxes, Congress must take two steps before the money can be spent. First, a bill must authorize the spending. Then a second bill must actually appropriate the money–and appropriations normally can be, and often are, less than authorized.
However, the 2005 transportation authorization bill–which included some 7,000 earmarks including the infamous “bridge to nowhere”–mandated that appropriators spend the fully authorized levels. The bill was also based on some optimistic assumptions about future revenues.
High gas prices in 2007 and 2008 curtailed the growth in fuel consumption, and soon the so-called Highway Trust Fund was out of money. This forced Congress to appropriate general funds for transportation, which some were quick to call a subsidy to highways but was in fact a subsidy to pork-barrel spending.
Incoming Republicans proposed a new rule that would prevent the House from considering a bill with such mandatory spending. Highway builders, the transit lobby, and various labor unions joined together to oppose this rule. But the House passed it over their objections.
The rule’s opponents said they feared that, without spending mandates, appropriators would let the highway trust fund grow and then take money from the fund for other non-transportation programs. But, despite rumors within the construction industry, this has never happened. Though Congress for a time openly dedicated 4.3 cents of the gas tax to “deficit reduction,” it never specifically underspent the fund and then diverted the surplus to something else. (Of course, there is no real “fund”; it is just an accounting fiction, and the year-to-year balances are carefully reported by the Department of Transportation.)
After the vote, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said, “There are two deficits facing the country today – the federal debt and the deficit in maintaining the infrastructure on which economic recovery depends. In their zeal to address the first issue, the new House leadership has taken action that deepens the second.” However, as the Antiplanner has previously noted, there is no deficit in maintaining highway infrastructure. The only serious deficit relates to transit, and the solution there is to stop building high-cost transit systems when existing funds are inadequate to maintain the existing systems.
Congress is expected to reauthorize transportation spending again in 2011 (like the 2005 bill, it is two years overdue). Tuesday’s vote provides an indication that this year’s reauthorization will be more fiscally responsible than those in the past.
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THE FEDS WANT TO TAKE YOUR CAR! JANUARY 9, 2011
Randal O’Toole’s transportation newsletter
CONGRESSIONAL BELLWEATHER: HOUSE APPROVES NEW RULES
Last week, the new Republican-dominated House passed new rules that are a game changer for federal transportation spending. In a nutshell, the new rules provide a safeguard against irresponsible ork-barrel spending.
Before spending money, Congress normally passes a law authorizing the spending and then a second law appropriating the money. The two types of laws are written by different committees, providing a check against overspending. Since 1956, when Congress first dedicated federal gas taxes to highways (and, after 1982, transit), Congress has passed a new law authorizing spending out of gas taxes about very six years.
In the 1998 and 2005 reauthorizations, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the authorizing committee, circumvented this check by mandating that the appropriations committee spend all of the authorized money. This became an issue in 2007 because the 2005 reauthorization law spent more money than was coming into the Highway Trust Fund. This forced Congress to appropriate general funds to the trust fund, guaranteeing that pork-barrel projects would be funded.
The new House rules, approved on Tuesday, January 4, forbid the House from considering any legislation that would include such mandates. This rule was fought by highway builders, the transit lobby, and labor unions, all of which wanted the pork barrel to continue. But the House passed the rule over their objections. That’s good news for those who seek a return to fiscal sanity.