Surface Transportation Reauthorization

What does MAP-21 do? Check out this summary.

On June 29, the conference report for H.R. 4348, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) overwhlemingly passed the House and the Senate with strong bipartisan votes. The House passed the conference report by a vote of 373-52, while the legislation passed the Senate 74-19. In a statement, U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue urged the President to immediately sign this legislation noting, "The bipartisan highway and transit bill will create jobs, enhance America’s competitiveness, and bring needed reforms to transportation spending."

On June 28, the Transporation Conferees released their Conference Report Agreement. The Chamber strongly supports the conference report which includes landmark reforms that will greatly improve the business of transportation investment in this country.  Specifically, this bill will:

• Establish historic reforms to the project delivery process;
• Consolidate and simplify the federal program structure;
• Strengthen accountability and performance measures;
• Reduce duplicative and costly federal approval process for new Transit systems;
• Improve freight movement with targeted investment;
• Leverage federal resources through the TIFIA program to expand public private partnerships and private participation; and,
• Enhance the research, development and application of intelligent transportation technologies.

In terms of funding, while the conference report does not return highway, transit and safety programs to the funding high water mark of FY2011, it does provide funding certainty though 2014 for much-needed investment.

The Chamber looks forward to working with Congress to ensure that federal transportation and transit programs have the sustainable, predictable and growing user-based funding source needed for the long term maintaining funding levels.

In the near-term, this bill will provide needed certainty to those whose business is building – engineers, contractors, materials providers and equipment manufacturers and all the hard-working Americans they employ. In long-term, this bill will advance critical transportation investments around the country that will facilitate the efficient delivery of U.S. exports and the movement of a growing service sector – critical steps in a pro-growth agenda. It will help strengthen our economy, enhance U.S. productivity and competitiveness, reduce congestion, improve the environment, and save lives.

On June 18, the U.S. Chamber sent the Congress a letter highlighting common ground and much-needed and important reforms contained in the House and Senate bills.

Since the beginning of May, House and Senate Transportation Conferees have been working to reconcile the Senate (S. 1813) and the House (H.R. 4348) versions of surface transportation reauthorization legislation.

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