Senate Passes Transportation Bill, Still Waiting on the House to Take Action

On Wednesday, the Senate passed their AGC supported, 2- year, $109 billion surface transportation reauthorization bill, S. 1813 the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) by a strong bipartisan vote of 74-22.  Funding levels and key provisions of MAP-21 can be found here. The bipartisanship that brought the bill to the floor for a vote was evident during the deliberation of the bill and the consideration of amendments. Several amendments were passed by a voice vote, while a number of amendments opposed by AGC were defeated. These include amendments to cut the overall funding of MAP-21; devolve federal surface transportation programs to the states; and allow states to opt out of the federal program. A full list of amendments that AGC took a position on can be found here.  There were several other transportation related amendments to MAP-21, a complete list can be found here. AGC and other industry stakeholders were successful in inserting language into the final bill that includes a multi-year exemption from the Private Activity Bond (PAB) volume cap for water and wastewater projects.  The legislation provides for a five or six-year exemption from the state PAB volume cap for water projects while also providing  a one-year alternative minimum tax (AMT) extension for tax-exempt bonds. Attention now is focused on the House of Representatives where Republican leaders have several options as to how they wish to proceed. AGC has learned that the most likely scenario is that the House will pass a short-term extension while they try to reach an agreement on a final reauthorization bill.  At this point, it seems unlikely the House will simply take up and pass the Senate bill. All 100 Senators have already agreed that it is unconstitutional for them to send their passed version of the transportation bill to the House since it is unconstitutional for a bill with a S. bill number to raise or extend taxes, as S. 1813 does.  AGC and other transportation stakeholders continue to push for the House to pass a multiyear reauthorization prior to the March 31 deadline. Please visit AGC's Legislative Action Center to send a letter to your Representative. For more information, please contact Sean O’Neill at (202) 547-8892 or oneills@agc.org.