SAFETEA-LU Has 31-Day Extension

President Obama signed a bill on Oct. 1 providing a one-month extension for the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users and one month’s appropriations for nearly all federal agencies. In a blow to state transportation agencies, the Senate failed to pass a three-month SAFETEA-LU extension, thus triggering an $8.7-billion rescission of highway contract authority.

Under the continuing resolution (CR) that Obama signed, agencies have funding to carry through Oct. 31, generally at 2009 levels. SAFETEA-LU was extended through that date, too. The measure was needed because Congress had not approved any of the 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1. SAFETEA-LU also expired on Sept. 30. The CR does provide full-year 2010 funds for legislative programs.

A three-month bill fails, triggering $8.7-billion cut in highway contract authority.

In the Senate, Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (Okla.), the committee’s top GOP member, tried to push through a three-month SAFETEA-LU stopgap that also would have repealed the $8.7-billion highway-aid rescission.

But Republicans objected to the budgetary offset Boxer and Inhofe proposed: $300 million from Troubled Assets Relief Program funds. Boxer objected to a counterproposal from Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) to use some unspent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money. The standstill left the next step unclear.

Obama on Oct. 1 also signed a three-month extension for aviation programs, including airport construction grants.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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