House Committee Approves FY 2014 Transportation Appropriations

This week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) passed their funding bill for FY 2014.  The bill funds the federal highway and transit programs at the MAP-21 levels. In total, the bill provides over $40 billion for the highway program and $10 billion for the transit program.  AGC members who participated in April’s Federal Contractors Conference and this month’s Transportation Construction Coalition Fly-In lobbied their members on the hill to ensure the THUD bill included MAP-21 funding levels. In addition, the Airport Improvement Program saw a slight increase in funding from FY 2013 to $3.35billion from $3.1 billion.  The subcommittee faced a tight discretionary spending cap of $44.1 billion (the Highway Trust Fund and Airport Improvement Program are not subject to this spending cap), forcing them to make cuts to several programs, including zeroing out the TIGER grant programs for next year and rescinding $237 million previously appropriated for the TIGER program in FY 2013.  The subcommittee rejected a request for $50 billion in upfront infrastructure funding proposed in the president’s budget. The bill will be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee on June 27. AGC will continue to advocate for full funding for the major infrastructure programs in the final FY 2014 transportation funding bill.