Transportation Conference Committee Holds First Hearing

On May 8, the House and Senate conferees held their first public hearing.  The hearing consisted almost solely of opening statements from the 47 members of Congress serving on the conference committee.  The committee is being chaired by Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and they are charged with working out the differences between H.R. 4348, a 90-day extension of the current surface transportation authorization that includes environmental streamlining provisions, approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and other provisions with the Senate’s two-year $109 billion comprehensive bill, MAP-21. No progress on policy issues occurred at the meeting.  However, there were senators from both parties in support for the Senate bill, while the House conferees were split on the position of the House going into conference.  The House republicans rallied around the environment streamlining reforms, Keystone XL pipeline, and responsible pay-for’s, to maintain current funding levels for our federal highway and transit programs.  Following the public meeting, staff of the committees of jurisdiction met on May 9 to continue the process of reconciling differences. AGC, along with the AGC-led Transportation Construction Coalition, sent a letter to the conferees detailing our positions on a variety of priority issues, including funding, financing, environmental streamlining and others.  The letters can be found here and here.  AGC will continue to work with the members of Congress on the committee and congressional staff to ensure when a final bill is agreed upon it is completed before June 30 and has greatest positive impact on the construction industry. AGC encourages all our members to visit our Legislative Action Center and contact your member of Congress and urge them to work together to transportation reauthorization bill prior to June 30, 2012. For more information, please contact Sean O’Neill at (202) 547-8892 or oneills@agc.org.