Senate Dems criticize Boehner for reduced transportation funding in CR bill

By Keith Laing - 03/06/13 01:05 PM ET

Senate Democrats are criticizing House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for reducing the amount of money Congress spends on transportation projects in the bill that would avert a shutdown of the federal government.

The lawmakers said the House’s proposal for a continuing resolution of spending for rest of the 2013 fiscal year includes less funding for road and transit projects than the 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) surface transportation bill allocated.

“As chairs of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, we write to express our strong disappointment that the full-year continuing resolution for fiscal year (FY) 2013 being considered in the House of Representatives this week continues to disregard the funding levels negotiated in the 112th Congress in the surface transportation bill,” Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Tim Johnson (D–S.D.) wrote to Boehner.

“Instead of persevering the funding levels authorized in MAP-21, this continuing resolution would apply an across–the-board reduction to the funding levels included in MAP-21 that would result in transportation spending levels even lower than those enacted in FY2012, and in certain cases would apply drastic reductions to highway safety programs,” the lawmakers continued. “MAP-21 passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support, with a vote of 373 to 52 in the House and a vote of 74 to 19 in the Senate, and the commitments made in that bill must be kept.”

The lawmakers added that the $105 billion 2012 transportation bill was “fully paid for” revenue from the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax and a package of fee increases and closing tax loopholes. The measure was supposed to spend approximately $54 billion per year on road and transit projects.

“Not adhering to these levels would ignore the will of Congress and hurt efforts to maintain safe roads and bridges, repair public transportation systems, improve driver safety and help construction workers get back to work,” the Democrats said.

Boehner's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Senate Democrats' letter. The speaker has said in interviews that the continuing resolution is necessary to prevent a shutdown of the federal government at the end of March.

“The House … will act to extend the continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30,” he said during an appearance on NBC's “Meet The Press” on Sunday.

“The president … agreed that we should not have any talk of a government shutdown,” Boehner continued. “So I'm hopeful that the House and Senate will be able to work through this.”