On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committed moved several bills out of their committee. S. 1449, the Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Improvement Act ; S. 1950, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Enhancement Act; S. 1952 the hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Improvement Act; and S. 1953, the Research and Innovative Technology Administration Reauthorization Act address federal highway safety and research policy and will be part of the committees overall contribution to the surface transportation reauthorization bill.
The bills were mostly bipartisan and non-controversial, except for the Commercial Motor Safety bill. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) added language to the bill that would create a new federal policy for surface transportation and a multi-modal freight program. AGC has several concerns with the language inserted by Senator Lautenberg. Specifically, we are concerned that neither a funding source nor a funding amount is identified. We are also concerned that the multi-modal aspect of the proposal is not paid for out of the Highway Trust Fund, but rather with General Fund dollars. AGC will continue to monitor the developments in the Commerce Committee and work to ensure no money is diverted from the Highway Trust Fund to provide funding for transportation modes that do not contribute to the Highway Trust Fund.
The Senate Banking Committee, with jurisdiction of the transit portions of the surface transportation bill, had intended to mark up this week, but yesterday Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R- Ala.) announced that there were still outstanding issues with their bill and they will not be marking up this week. Both Shelby and Johnson said there is a possibility that if the Senate is in session next week they may take action on their bill.
For more information, please contact Sean O’Neill at (202) 547-8892 or oneills@agc.org.
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