The House GOP adopted a rule last night that will allow the House to allocate less transportation funding than is authorized by SAFETEA-LU. The rules package will be voted on by the full House and is expected to pass.

The purpose of the rule is to "prevent the government from being forced to spend more on surface transportation projects than the Highway Trust Fund collects."

What does it mean for transportation stakeholders and agencies? Almost certainly the FY 2012 transportation appropriations bill (Oct '11 - Sep '12) will provide less funding than the 2010 spending bill. The FY 2011 spending levels are yet to be finalized; the House and Senate headed to a big showdown over that, come February.

Pro-transportation Representatives will put up a good fight, and the Senate and White House will likely support higher funding levels, but ultimately it may not be enough. Look for 2012 transportation spending to be much, much closer to projected revenue than authorized spending levels.

And transit and rail program funding may be more at risk. Much of the funding for those programs comes from the general fund.

WSDOT contacted each WA Republican House member to explain the impact of the amendment on WSDOT, local agency and tribe transportation. We asked our members to support a compromise amendment created by Rep. John Mica (Transportation Committee Chair) and Rep. LaTourette (Appropriations Committee), that would have revised the rule to be more transportation-friendly. The compromise amendment was rejected.

Republicans have talked about returning to 2008 spending levels. That now may look more appealing to transportation stakeholders, off the top of my head I suspect that 2008 funding is probably higher than the current Highway Fund revenues.

Unfortunately it appears that the financial benefits of that spending (jobs preservation and creation, the manufacturing and purchasing of construction goods) played little or no role in the debate. Hopefully transportation stakeholders can make those arguments more forcefully in the coming months.