DALLAS - The Highway Trust Fund will be able to make reimbursements to states for highway and transit projects through mid-2016 rather than running out of money by December as earlier estimated, the Transportation Department said Tuesday.
The usual winter construction slowdown should reduce the level of reimbursements to states from the HTF for transportation projects by enough to keep it solvent into June, the department said in its regular update on the fund's fiscal health.
The $8.1 billion of general revenues transferred into the HTF by the 90-day reauthorization of federal transportation funding approved by Congress in late July had been expected to keep the fund afloat through mid-December.
"These transfers will help maintain Highway Trust Fund solvency through the third quarter of fiscal year 2016," the Transportation Department said in the updated outlook on its Fast Lane blog. The U.S. fiscal year starts Oct. 1.
The short-term fix, HR 3038, transferred $6.1 billion into the HTF's highway account and $2 billion into the transit account.
The extension of the HTF's solvency by general fund transfers will allow reimbursements to states at least through June for current work but not for new projects, it said.
The Transportation Department's authority to reimburse the states from the fund was limited to another 90 days by the short-term patch. The current extension, which was the 34th in the last seven years, followed a 60-day patch approved by Congress in May.
"It is important to note that many programs funded through the Highway Trust Fund are only authorized through Oct. 29," the posting said. "Although sufficient balances exist in the Highway Trust Fund to maintain solvency through the third quarter of fiscal 2016, an Oct. 29 lapse in authorization prevents new obligations in highway and transit programs and impacts reimbursements to states."
The Senate passed the DRIVE Act, a six-year, $350 billion transportation infrastructure bill, in late July a few hours after adopting the House's short-term HTF patch sponsored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
Ryan said the three-month fix would provide the time needed by the House and Senate to reach consensus on a fully funded, multiyear highway bill before the end of 2015.
Lawmakers differed on whether the new estimate for a solvent HTF well into 2016 will remove the deadline pressure on Capitol Hill to solve the transportation funding puzzle.
"I'd just as soon that they had not even talked about that," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said of the revised estimate. "I wasn't happy to hear that because we need to go ahead."
Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the ranking Democratic member of the panel, were the major architects of the Senate's DRIVE Act.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he doubts that the revised estimate will make a difference. Most members of Congress agree on the need for quick action on transportation funding, he said.
"We need to invest," Blumenthal said Tuesday. "That urgency is no less because there is some pool of money that enables us to get through the next few months."
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx praised the DRIVE Act in a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, though he said it raised transportation funding by only 5% per year from fiscal 2015.
It will take at least $400 billion of additional transportation funding over the next six years to prevent traffic congestion from getting worse, he said.
"If we are going to invest more in infrastructure and get the same crummy results, what's the point?" Foxx said. "I am really worried that we are spending more time trying to find the wrench and not actually fixing the dishwasher."
