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House to introduce five-year, $260 billion highway bill
The new federal highway bill that will be taken up by the House of Representatives next week will be a five-year, $260 billion proposal, a House Transportation Committee aide said Thursday.
The vote on the measure, which funds the Federal Highway Administration and authorizes the collection of the federal gas tax, among other things, will take place a week from Thursday, according to the aide.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said in a statement released by his office that the measure would take a different approach than the one that was outlined by President Obama in the State of the Union address Tuesday night.
“America needs to rebuild its infrastructure, but I do not support what appears to be the president’s plan to finance that effort by downsizing the military,” Mica said in the statement.
In his remarks to lawmakers Tuesday night, Obama suggested a different course.
“Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home,” Obama said in the State of Union, his third since taking office.
Lawmakers have debated a renewal of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, which expired in 2009, for the better part of two years. While they debated, members of the House and Senate approved eight short-term extensions of the last highway bill, including the most recent extension, which passed last fall and is set to expire March 31.
The Democratically-controlled Senate has suggested it would move forward with a two-year, $109 billion surface transportation bill.
Both proposals are far less than the six-year, $556 billion the president called for spending on transportation last year.
—Kevin Bogardus contributed to this report.
