Spending: Nine-Week Stopgap Measure On Verge of Approval

It looks like federal agencies will be operating under another short-term spending bill. The Senate on Dec. 21 passed a stopgap continuing resolution (CR) to fund construction accounts and other federal programs through March 4. The vote was 79-16. The House approved the measure within hours.

The nine-week measure also would continue authorizations for surface-transportation programs through March 4. State transportation agencies and construction firms that pursue federally funded work would have preferred an extension at least through Sept. 30, when fiscal 2011 ends.

Federal Aviation Administration programs, including airport construction grants, will fare a little better. The House and Senate cleared a separate measure to carry FAA authorizations through March 31.

The bill, which won final congressional approval on Dec. 18, is the 17th aviation stopgap since September 2007, when the last multiyear FAA bill lapsed.

The new, government-wide CR would fund most programs at their 2010 levels. One exception is funding for the latest round of the Defense Dept.’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program, which would be cut about 65% from 2010’s total. That reduction reflects a scheduled drop in BRAC project volume.

Senate Democrats had tried to move a $1.11-trillion catch-all bill designed to run through Sept. 30, but Republicans blocked it.

That omnibus, which Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) abandoned on Dec. 16, would have pared many construction programs and frozen others at 2010 levels. It also included some increases.

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.

After a short stint as a freelance contributor to ENR, Tudor joined the editorial staff in 2002 and was a managing editor. His areas of expertise included construction equipment, trucks, tools, materials and global construction. He was a certified crane operator and reported heavy construction news in the U.S. and outside—including Europe, Dubai, India and China.

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