By a 61-37 vote, the Senate today passed its $838 billion economic stimulus bill after adopting the compromise amendment offered by Sens. Susan Collins, (R-Maine) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb). Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania joined Collins as the only Republicans to vote for the bill. The bill will now go to a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions. While the goal of the Democratic leadership is to have a final bill by the end of this week, the significant differences in the two measures will make that timeline difficult to meet.
While there were numerous amendments in the Senate related to increasing highway, bridge, transit and other transportation funding, in the end, the amounts for these programs were left unchanged from the figures included by the Appropriations Committee. A comparison of the House and Senate passed versions of the bill is as follow:
Senate
Federal-aid Highway $27 B
Discretionary Grants $5.5 B
Transit Formula Grants $8.4 B
TRANSIT New Starts 0
Airport Improvement $1.1 B
House
Federal-aid Highway $30 B
Discretionary Grants 0
Transit Formula Grants $9.5 B
TRANSIT New Starts $2.5 B
Airport Improvement $ 3 B
The Federal-aid highway funds will be distributed according to SAFETEA-LU formulas but the bills use two different formulas. The Senate formula will result in approximately 55 percent of each states' apportionment going to the State DOT, 45 percent to metropolitan areas and 5 percent to the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program (CMAQ). The House formula gives approximately 70 percent of each states' apportionment directly to the DOT, 25 percent to metropolitan areas and 5 percent will be used for enhancement projects.
In addition to traditional highway and bridge projects, the Senate bill makes storm water runoff, passenger and freight rail, and port projects eligible for these formula funds. The Senate bill also establishes a new Discretionary Grant Program for Surface Transportation Projects funded at $5.5 billion. States would have to apply for these grant funds which could be used for highway, transit, freight and passenger rail, port and intermodal connection projects valued between $20 million and $500 million. Priority would be given to projects that could be completed within 3 years. Grants would be awarded on a competitive basis based on criteria to be established by DOT.
Both the House and Senate bills include "use or lose" requirements. In the House bill, states are required to obligate 50 percent of their apportionment within 90 days. States would lose 50 percent of the funds not obligated in the first 90 days. These lost funds would be redistributed to states that had obligated their funds (50 percent of their apportionment) within the 90 day window. States would be further required to obligate the second 50 percent of their apportionment by August 1, 2010. Funds not obligated by that date would be redistributed to states that had fully obligated their state apportionment. These redistributed funds would have to be obligated by September 30, 2010 or they would be lost.
In the Senate, States would have to obligate fifty percent of their formula funds within 180 days, at which time unobligated funds would be redistributed to states that used their funds. The second 50 percent of the formula funds would have to be obligated one year after enactment. Funds not obligated within one year would go into the new discretionary grant program, rather than be redistributed to other states as in the House bill. The Discretionary grants would be available until September 30, 2011.
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