Bud Shuster: “We have an immediate, critical need to address the solvency of the trust fund and extend the current surface…”

“We have an immediate, critical need to address the solvency of the trust fund and extend the current surface transportation law. If Congress fails to act, thousands of transportation projects and hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country will be at risk. Two weeks ago, the House acted and passed H.R. 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014. This important legislation extends Federal surface transportation programs and ensures the solvency of the highway trust fund through May of 2015. It provides certainty. The House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 5021 with a bipartisan vote of 367-55. Then we waited for the Senate to act. We continue to wait and wait. Then on Tuesday, the Senate finally acted. The Senate amended our bill to reduce funding for the highway trust fund and only extend surface transportation programs through December 19, 2014. The Senate approach is deeply flawed. First, the Senate proposal is not fully offset. It underfunds the highway trust fund by more than $2 billion. Second, the Senate's shorter extension would guarantee a manufactured crisis in a lameduck session, when some might be inclined to play politics with these issues or use them as vehicles for unrelated policies that should be subject to the full and open debate they deserve. Today, the House is considering a motion to disagree with the Senate amendment to H.R. 5021 and send our original bill back to the Senate.…”