Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

This week the U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on emergency aid, which will include federal funds to restore affected public transportation systems. In the last Congress, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of a $60 billion aid package, which would have included $10.8 billion for public transportation systems and mitigation activities that would prevent similar destruction from natural disasters in the future.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) was officially confirmed by the House of Representatives to chair the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He also announced the full Committee Republican membership.

The measure will continue to fund government programs for another six months, including all transportation programs, however, it will fund those programs at previous levels and not for the amounts authorized by MAP-21.

The tentative agreement establishes federal highway, transit and highway safety policy and keeps programs at current funding levels through the end of fiscal year 2014. If a majority of House and Senate conferees approve the conference report, both bodies are then expected to take up the measure before the end of the week, prior to the expiration of the current extension of transportation funding on June 30th.

Lawmakers said that the leaders’ instruction that negotiators redouble their efforts was seen as genuine and boosted hopes of a deal before the July 4 recess, which begins a week from Friday.

The same hurdles – the Keystone XL oil pipeline and funding the bill – still exist without any new solutions being posited.

The provision, part of Congress’ FY2012 appropriations legislation, allows transit operators in the most populated urban areas to use a portion of their allocated FY2012 FTA funds specifically for this purpose.

A letter signed by 188 U.S. mayors urged the House and Senate to enact bicameral, bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization legislation. In addition, the mayors also reiterated their strong opposition to a pending House bill that proposes to shift gas tax revenues away from public transportation.

Congressional inaction on extending commuter benefits leads public transit riders to see taxes increase more than $550 in 2012. APTA is urging riders to push Congress to support commuter transit benefit as they resume negotiations to finalize the middle class payroll tax cut before it expires at the end of February.

In 2011, both drivers and mass transit riders received a $230 monthly exception. Starting Jan. 1, the tax break for drivers will go up to $240, due to a cost-of-living increase, but transit riders will be forced to make do with $125 per month in pretax money.