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Highway bill conference report released
The bicameral agreement on a new surface transportation bill was released early Thursday morning by the House Rules Committee.
The bill (H.R. 4348) “provides funding for the federal-aid highway program through fiscal 2014 at current funding levels with a small inflationary adjustment,” the 47-member committee that convened on the measure for two months said in a joint statement attached to its report.
Lawmakers had to hoped to release the text of the compromise highway bill by Wednesday evening to clear the way for a vote on the measure by Friday. Because a draft of the measure was not completed until early Thursday morning, however, House GOP leaders will either have to waive their three-day rule for reviewing legislation before a vote or delay passage until Saturday.
The conference committee report cast the agreement as compromise both houses of Congress could easily live with.
“The Senate and the House both sought to consolidate the number of programs in the federal-aid highway program to focus priorities and resources on key national goals,” the report said. “The conference report consolidates the number of highway programs by two-thirds. The elimination of dozens of programs makes more resources available to states and metropolitan areas to invest in their most critical needs to improve the condition and performance of their transportation system.”
The report added: “The conference report combined provisions from the House and Senate bills focusing on the shared priority of accelerating project delivery. It maintains the vast majority of project acceleration provisions from S. 1813 and provisions from the House bill in addition to new provisions that will maintain substantive environment and public health protections while streamlining the creation and use of documents and environmental reviews, enhancing efficiency and accountability in the project delivery process.”
The full 599-page transportation bill can be read here.
