Recovery plan passes

Obama signs bill into law

Steve Hawley, Feb 12, 09.

Tagged with

UPDATE: The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County will receive about $92 million from the recovery bill, while the Houston region will get $124 million for highways, in addition to whatever money the Texas Department of Transportation spends in the region.

UPDATE: Obama supports transportation reform in interview. President Obama said in a recent interview that he supports better transportation planning processes and would like to see an infrastructure bank established, according to a transcript provided by the Washington Post.

UPDATE: LaHood issues statement supporting transit, sustainability. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood released a statement yesterday supporting transit, high-speed rail, and sustainable development in response to the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In addition, Transportation for America has released a full summary of the transportation elements in the recovery bill. The numbers are identical to those reported earlier, but the information contains certain conditions and sub-allocations in the bill, including timelines for obligating funds, as well as other transportation-related items such as economic recovery zone bonds.

UPDATE: President Obama has signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in Denver, ABC News reports.

UPDATE: Recovery plan passes House and Senate, Obama to sign on Tuesday. The House and Senate approved the conference report, sending it to President Obama for his signature. Obama plans to sign the legislation on Tuesday in Denver. The final transportation figures differ slightly from the numbers reported earlier, providing $27.5 billion for highways, $17.7 billion for rail and transit, and $1.5 for discretionary grants. The rail and transit money includes $8 billion for high-speed rail, $6.9 billion for transit, $1.3 billion for Amtrak, and $750 million each for rail modernization and transit new starts.

Below are the final figures, in thousands:

UPDATE: High Speed Rail Gets Big Boost In Compromise Bill. Highway funding is set at $29 billion, not $27 billion as earlier reported. Rail and transit would receive $17.7 billion, more than in either the House or Senate versions, largely due to the increase in high-speed rail funding.

UPDATE: The Senate passed its version of the recovery bill 61-37, and the House and Senate must now work on a compromise bill. The Bond and Boxer/Inhoff amendments, which together would have stripped $7.5 billion in transit and rail funding while adding tens of billions to highway projects, never made it to the floor for a vote. The Senate version calls for $27 billion in highway spending and $11.5 billion for transit, as well as $5.5 billion in discretionary funding that could be spent in either category. The House version includes $30 billion for highways and $13.1 billion for transit.

The Senate began debating the economic recovery bill Tuesday, according to Reuters. Its first formal action was to reject an amendment sponsored by Senators Patty Murray (WA) and Dianne Feinstein (CA) that would have added $13 billion for highways, $7 billion for water and sewer infrastructure, and $5 billion for public transportation. The Senate voted 58-39 in favor of the amendment, two votes shy of passage. Amendments that increase the bill’s total cost, such as the Murray amendment, require a three-fifths majority, while amendments that reapportion funds require a simple majority.

Senators John Cornyn (TX) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) voted against the amendment.

The Senate is working on a number of changes to the House bill. The Boston Globe notes that Sen. John Kerry (MA) has added $2 billion for high-speed rail. Bloomber News reports that Sen. Charles Schumer (NY) will introduce an
amendment increasing transit funding in the Senate bill by $6.5 billion, to a total of $14.9 billion. The addition includes $2 billion for capital needs, $2 billion for rail, and $2.5 billion for new starts.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 passed the House 244-188 last Wednesday, according to U.S. News & World Report. Only five percent of the $819 billion - about $43 billion - would go toward infrastructure, as noted by the Globe article, including an estimated $113 million for the Houston region that will be allocated directly to the Houston-Galveston Area Council, an unknown amount that the Texas Department of Transportation will allocate to the Houston region, and an unknown amount that the Federal Transit Administration will allocate to the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County and other local transit-providers. This comes despite a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers giving the U.S. infrastructure system a “D” grade and estimating its needs for the next five years at $2.2 trillion. For the sake of perspective, the previous major federal transportation bill, which passed in 2005 and covered 5 years of infrastructure spending totaled $286.4 billion, according to wikipedia.

Transit advocates won two important victories last week, adding $3 billion in transit funding and defeating an attempt to eliminate all $800 million allocated to Amtrak. The bill now contains $30 billion for highways, $12 billion for transit, and $1.1 billion for inter-city rail.

Of the Houston-area representatives, the Houston Chronicle reports that Al Green (TX-09), Gene Green (TX-29), and Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18) voted for the bill, while Kevin Brady (TX-08), John Culberson (TX-07), Michael McCaul (TX-10), Pete Olson (TX-22), Ron Paul (TX-14), and Ted Poe (TX-02) voted against it. The first three also voted to preserve the Amtrak funding, while the other six voted to remove it from the bill.

Houston Tomorrow will provide more information about the recovery plan as it becomes available.

More Initiatives