Congress Approves FY 2014 Appropriations

The House and Senate this week gave final approval to the Fiscal Year 2014 omnibus appropriations legislation and President Obama said he will sign it.  The bill comes after Congress failed to pass any of the 12 appropriations bills for FY 2014.  AGC advocated for the passage of the bill to ensure predictability for FY 2014 federal construction programs. The legislation – which ends four years of Congress funding government agencies through a series of stopgap spending bills and funding extensions – sets overall discretionary spending levels of $1.1 trillion as agreed to in the budget conference agreement which ended the government shut down.  These levels are $45 billion over levels that had been scheduled under automatic sequester spending cuts. For transportation, the bill provides MAP-21 funding levels for federal-aid highways and transit programs and an increase in U.S. DOT’s TIGER grant program. The final transportation funding bill did not include the Senate’s proposed $500 million discretionary bridge program or the Senate’s $100 million for high-speed and intercity passenger rail. DOT funding is as follows: FY 2013                                  FY 2014 Federal-aid Highways (Ob Limit)        $39.620 B                                $40.256 B Transit Formula                                          $ 8.461 B                                 $ 8.595 B Transit New Starts                                      $ 1.855 B                                 $ 1.943 B Airport Improvement Grants                   $ 3.090 B                                 $ 3.350 B