April 12, 2019 – This week, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution giving the House Appropriations Committee a spending total for fiscal year 2020, allowing that panel to start marking up the twelve annual appropriations bills when the House comes back from recess the week of April 29.
April 12, 2019 – U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao made her annual trip to the House Appropriations Committee this week to defend the Trump Administration’s fiscal 2020 budget request for USDOT.
April 11, 2019 – Congress has chosen to let mass transit spending get significantly farther ahead of its dedicated revenue stream than highways has gotten ahead of its revenue stream, comparatively speaking.
April 11, 2019 – Yesterday, the Treasury Department announced that the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund has failed its forward-looking solvency test for fiscal year 2020. As a result, unless Congress passes new legislation fixing the problem, apportionments of FY 2020 mass transit formula funding to transit agencies will be reduced by around 12 percent from the levels provided by the FAST Act.
April 5, 2019 – The House and Senate Budget Committees have now approved vastly different spending plans for fiscal year 2020. While the House plan is headed for a vote by the full chamber next week, the Senate blueprint may have gone as far as it will ever go.