December 12, 1975
Page 40279
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. 2711, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1975.
I am a member of the Committee on Public Works which reported this bill, but I want the Senate to know that I am speaking now not as a member of the authorizing committee, but as chairman of the Committee on the Budget. I point this out because I want there to be no confusion in the minds of the Members of this body as to my motivation in supporting this bill. I speak not as a loyal member of an authorizing committee, but as a Budget Committee chairman who is pleased to be able to support a bill so well designed to further the continuing objectives of the highway program while enhancing the Senate's new budget process.
Before I comment on S. 2711's consistency with the second fiscal year 1976 budget resolution, however, allow me to say a few words about the funding the bill provides for the fiscal years 1977 and1978.
Yesterday I supported the passage of Senate Resolution 314, providing a budget waiver to allow this bill to come to the floor. Since I outlined at that time the reasons for the Budget Committee's favorable recommendation I will not repeat the explanation in detail now. Suffice it to say only that the committee found that the bill's 2-year advance authorization of contract authority for the non-interstate highway program represents an appropriate form of financing to provide an adequate assurance of Federal funding for what are, by their nature, multi-year construction programs. Further, the committee felt that the amounts proposed for the fiscal years 1977 and 1978 are reasonable in view of both recent funding levels and projected highway-related revenues. In short, the Budget Committee accepted the general funding levels proposed by S. 2711 for future years.
With regard to authorizations and apportionments for fiscal year 1976 and the transition quarter that follows, S. 2711 is not only consistent with, but also supportive of, the implicit assumptions behind the second concurrent resolution. It would authorize a total of $1.6 billion for the Interstate and non-Interstate Systems, to be apportioned immediately. This is contract authority necessary in order to fund the highway program through the remainder of this fiscal year and the summer's transition budget period. It would assure the uninterrupted continuation of the highway program in every State. The $1.6 billion figure is precisely the fiscal year 1976 contract authority amount assumed for the legislation in the second concurrent resolution.
Under the approach proposed by S.2711, no further apportionment of highway funds is required during the transition quarter, and the bill provides for none. Again, this is consistent with the second concurrent resolution, which assumed no additional budget authority for highways in the 3-month transition period between fiscal years.
Underlying the figures of $1.6 billion budget authority in fiscal year 1976 and zero budget authority for the transition quarter, is a simple but very significant alteration to the current apportionment process. Section 107 of the bill provides henceforth that apportionments of highway funds will take place each year on October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. The $1.6 billion provided in S. 2711 and assumed by the second concurrent resolution represents the "bridging finance" necessary to get to that new apportionment date without disrupting the continuity of the highway program.
The Public Works Committee has recommended this change in order that highway funding will be consistent with the new fiscal year and the new budget process. Unlike the past when highway funds could be apportioned and thereby made available to the States for obligation from 6 to as many as 18 months prior to the beginning of the fiscal year for which authorized, under S. 2711 the apportionment would take place on October 1 — non-Interstate funds would be apportioned on October 1 of the year for which authorized, and Interstate funds would be apportioned on October 1 of the year preceding the year for which authorized.
Thus, the timetable of highway funding and related decision making would now be generally in step with the budget timetable for other programs. When the Congress considers the total budget in the first and second concurrent resolutions, it would be able to do so with full knowledge and awareness of the amount and the timing of highway financing proposed by public works for that year's highway programs. Although this would not change the highway program's "favored" status as a program with earmarked revenues and the advance assurance of continued funding, it would nonetheless enhance immeasurably the Congress' ability to include consideration of the proper level of highway spending in its budget priorities debate. It will enable the Congress clearly to focus its attention on the absolute and comparative need for Federal assistance to highways in a manner similar to that for other programs.
I do not suggest that this means that the Congress would now come to control highway spending in the same sense and manner that it does programs subject to the annual appropriations process. The characteristics of the program do not permit the kind of uncertainty that that could embody,
The nature of highway construction is such that there must be an accommodation of the budget process to the needs of multi-year construction programs that need some assurance of continued financing assistance to promote orderly planning and construction efficiency. As one who has
been a long-time observer and supporter of this program I can tell you that the needs it has for such assured continued support are very real and very necessary. I want to advise those in the Congress who have not had much exposure to highway financing that they are mistaken if they believe that sizable year-to-year shifts in the level of highway spending are either financially feasible or economically efficient. The practical realities of highway construction suggest clearly that changes in program levels can only occur at the margin.
Finally, Mr. President, let me say that I have on a number of occasions found it necessary in the cause of fiscal discipline to oppose spending proposals for desirable programs or to warn that new authorizing legislation that would help satisfy societal needs might prove excessive in the context of an ever-expanding Federal budget. That is the nature of the job for the chairman of a committee charged with oversight of the Federal budget, and I do not for an instant regret that I am expected to offer that perspective. But I freely state that I experience a feeling of relief when a spending bill such as this one comes along and allows me to step out of the role of "nay sayer" and into the role of advocate.
I want to express my gratitude to the chairman of Public Works and to the chairman of the Transportation Subcommittee, Senator RANDOLPH and Senator BENTSEN and to the rest of the committee members and also the fine Public Works Committee staff who supported them in their efforts to design this legislation. S. 2711 skillfully satisfies the legitimate and continuing needs of the Federal-aid highway program while at the same time accommodating the needs of the new congressional budget process. I realize that the significance of this is likely to escape the notice of those outside this chamber, but it should not be lost to the Members of the Senate. This bill represents a rare example of the kind of legislative statesmanship that we must experience much more frequently if the Senate is to deal satisfactorily with the difficult economic and financial conditions that confront us.
I might add that the quality of this bill from a budget perspective stands in sharp contrast to its counterpart bill now moving in the House. This was brought home clearly to the Senate conferees during the conference on the second concurrent resolution. We had a strenuous debate with the House budget conferees over both the nature and extent of highway financing. It threatened to deadlock the conference itself, for the House conferees felt obligated to represent the position of their Public Works Committee in this matter. And that position in our opinion is one that is in direct conflict with the basic purpose of the new budget process. Rather than accommodating both the financing needs of the highway program and the needs of the congressional budget process, the House Public Works approach seeks loopholes in the budget act that would allow the highway program to be exempt from the budget process.
The conference concluded with no final resolution of this particular issue. But the Senate conferees made it unmistakably clear that we intended to defend vigorously the Senate position when the 1975 highway bill came to the floor, and if necessary, when it returned from conference. I urge you by your vote today to endorse this exceptional and statesman-like effort produced by the Committee on Public Works, and in so doing to indicate that S. 2711 represents the position not only of the Senate Public Works and Budget Committees, but of the full U.S. Senate as well.
There are a number of amendments proposed for this legislation that deal with substantive matters unrelated to the major budget issue I have discussed. As an individual Senator with my own views of these issues, I may vote for a few of the amendments. Whether these win or lose, however, I strongly support the bill for final passage.