October 1.4, 1978
Page 37490
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Senate has before it the conference report on H.R. 11733, the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978. This bill is a 4-year reauthorization of the Federal programs for highway construction, highway safety, and mass transit, and it involves major spending commitments by the Congress.
Because the conference report provides an increase in direct spending authority for fiscal year 1980, a year for which no first budget resolution has been adopted, it requires a waiver of section 303(a) of the Budget Act. The appropriate waiver resolution, Senate Resolution 589, was referred to the Budget Committee, which reported favorably on it, and was passed by the Senate. Passage by the Senate permits the Senate's consideration of the conference report.
As I said on August 21, when the Senate highway bill was under consideration, I believe the highway legislation that the Senate sent to conference was an unusually fine piece of legislation that was the product of the extremely good judgment of the Committee on Environment and Public Works and its fine staff. Particularly significant was the effective and responsible leadership of that committee's distinguished chairman, Senator RANDOLPH, its ranking minority member, Senator STAFFORD, and its excellent Transportation Subcommittee, led by
Senators BENTSEN and CHAFEE. They did an exceptionally fine job in writing the 1978 highway bill, and I was proud to support their efforts.
The Commerce Committee and the Banking Committee also should feel proud of the legislation which they sent to conference as part of this omnibus bill.
All three Senate bills were within and totally consistent with the congressionally approved budget.
Mr. President, when the Senate passed its version of the highway and mass transit legislation, I urged the conferees to stand firm behind the Senate provisions and to resist a number of questionable and budgetarily dangerous provisions contained in the House version of the legislation.
The conferees tried to do just that, and I think the Senate should be satisfied with their efforts. Although there remains room for improvement, the conference agreement should contribute significantly to satisfying the country's surface transportation needs, and should do so without pushing Federal spending to excessive levels.
Mr. President, I want to make sure that the Senate is aware of the budgetary dimensions of the conference battles in which the Senate conferees were required to engage. The spending levels proposed by the House were not just unreasonable, they were irresponsible. The House-passed bill carried a 4-year price tag of $61.3 billion, whereas the Senate-passed bill totaled only $50.4 billion. In comparison, the conference agreement before us, when scored on a comparable basis, provides for 4-year spending authorizations for highways and mass transit of $54.1 billion. This is a difference, a potential saving, of over $7 billion that was achieved by the Senate conferees. I congratulate them.
In considering the future impact of the conference agreement on the congressional budget, I find that because of the good work of the Senate conferees, expected fiscal 1979 funding for highways and mass transit is now only slightly above the assumptions of the budget resolution. Further, I believe the chances are good that with the Senate's forbearance and discipline, this slight spending excess can be accommodated. Considering the House conferees' pre-conference insistence upon funding that was higher by several billion dollars, I believe that this is a very creditable result indeed.
Now, I wish that this success of which I have thus far spoken could have been achieved at no price. Unfortunately, of course, it could not. In order to get favorable agreement on certain issues, the conferees had no choice but to give on others. That is the nature of the bargaining process. If good fiscal judgment alone could have determined the conference outcome, I think we can feel confident that the Senate position would have prevailed on essentially all major fiscal issues.
But because that is not the way the process works, it was predictable that the conference would produce certain outcomes with which the Senate disagrees. Speaking as a Senator who has particular budgetary responsibilities, I believe it is important to take note of six such outcomes which involved potentially serious budget implications. By bringing them to the Senate's attention now, I hope to underscore the need for continued oversight and evaluation, which hopefully will rescue us from any budgetary perils which might result.
As I mentioned, there are six budgetarily troublesome outcomes which bear watching. All were included at the insistence of the House conferees, and all were resisted by the Senate conferees.
The first budgetarily troublesome outcome of the conference agreement involves the highway authorization level for fiscal 1982, which is $1.3 billion below that for fiscal 1981. This "drop-off" in the program was an important factor in bringing the 4-year authorization totals within reasonable proximity of the congressional budget target and the President's recommendation of an acceptable total. However, one must be suspicious of the House conferees' intent in proposing this accommodation. The Senate will want to watch with interest and should be prepared to oppose any increase for fiscal 1982 authorizations which are not fully justified by firm evidence of new program needs not currently foreseen.
The second provision of major budgetary interest involves the authorizations for repair and rehabilitation of highway bridges. For fiscal 1979, the administration requested $450 million, and the Senate-passed bill provided $525 million — both representing substantial increases above the fiscal 1978 funding level of $180 million. The conference agreement provides $900 million for fiscal1979 and further substantial increases for fiscal 1980 and fiscal 1981. The Department of Transportation has indicated that the fiscal 1979 level exceeds the maximum amounts that can be responsibly obligated by the States.
Further, I am concerned by the implications of expanding eligibility for assistance to bridges not on a Federal-aid system. The intention is not to substitute Federal responsibility for State and local responsibility in this new area, but rather to provide on a limited basis Federal assistance for high priority projects which would not otherwise qualify and which would present unacceptable safety hazards in the absence of Federal assistance. However, if we are not careful, the result could be unwarranted and excessively large funding increases in the future. To see that this is so, one need only note that the House authorizing committee originally proposed annual funding of $2 billion for this program. Clearly this program warrants continued examination to assure that it does not produce sizable undesired and unintended budget impacts.
A third provision that may have troublesome budgetary impacts provides for an increased Federal matching share for non-Interstate Highway projects. The conference agreement increases the Federal share from its current 70 to 75 percent. The House had proposed 80 percent, but the Senate conferees were able to resist an increase of that magnitude. Even so, the change provides increased leverage for State and local highway dollars and shifts more of the highway spending burden to the Federal Government, which is least able to bear it. I believe we must watch very carefully the impact of this change, and be prepared not only to resist any further increases, but to reverse this change if it proves unjustified and unwise.
A fourth troublesome provision increases the existing ceiling on fiscal 1979 Federal-aid highway obligations to what appears to be an unrealistically high level. The Appropriations Committees regularly include an obligation ceiling in the DOT appropriation bill, and the fiscal 1979 DOT appropriation bill set the ceiling at $7.95 billion. The Senate highway bill included no ceiling provision, but the House bill provided $10.9 billion, more than $3 billion above what the Congressional Budget Office estimates is possible even with the most liberal of program assumptions. At the insistence of the House, the conference agreement provides for a fiscal 1979 ceiling of $8.5 billion, which is still nearly $1 billion above CBO's estimate.
The ceiling is of budgetary significance because it provides both a guide to expected program activity and an assurance that budget targets based on that guide will not be reached. The Senate should check closely to see if this ceiling now proposed bears any resemblance to reality. I suspect we will find it does not. And I would hope if that is the case that in future years we give more credence to the estimates of those who have the technical expertise to make quality budgetary estimates.
Mr. President, the fifth aspect of the conference agreement that troubles me involves a provision that is not there. When the Senate passed this bill, it included an amendment offered by Senator MORGAN that was intended to assure the proper financial management of the highway trust fund. It was a responsible statement of policy strongly supported not only by the Senate authorizing committee, but also by the full Senate. It was adopted by an overwhelming 86 to 0 vote. At the insistence of the House, however, this provision was excluded from the conference agreement.
I believe the Senate should be concerned by the implications of the House's intransigence on this provision. Given the size of the funding levels supported by the House, one implication could well be that the House is not concerned with the issue of responsible financial management of the trust fund. Or, alternatively, that the House is setting the stage for a future increase in gasoline and other highway taxes that cannot be avoided if the highway trust fund is not to experience difficulties similar to those of the social security trust fund. I certainly hope that neither of these are true, but the House's resistance to this policy provision, which is so clear in its intent that the Federal Government simply act as a responsible trustee of the taxpayers' funds, should give us a clear warning to stay on guard.
Finally, Mr. President, I am concerned by the inclusion of a provision in the mass transit portion of the conference agreement that appears to establish a new Federal program to provide subsidies to intercity bus operators. Again this was included at the insistence of the House conferees, as no similar provision was in the Senate bill. Indeed, a similar proposal made last year was strongly opposed by the administration and defeated by a specific vote of the Senate. I strongly question the merits of the provision, and I urge the Appropriations Committees to look this provision over very closely before starting the Federal Government down the path of providing sizable subsidies to yet another sector of the transportation industry.
To recapitulate, I am troubled by numerous provisions included in the conference agreement at the insistence of the House conferees. However, I applaud the efforts of the Senate conferees for having produced an agreement that under the circumstances must be considered acceptable. I believe the Senate should approve the conference agreement, and I encourage the President to sign it.
Mr. BENTSEN. I thank the distinguished chairman. I say to the chairman of the Budget Committee how appreciative we are of the assistance he gave us in trying to stay within the budget resolution.
As I stated earlier, our committee was faced with the rather difficult task of finding a House bill that originally started out, almost $11 billion above a 4-year expenditure for the Senate bill; and for the year 1979, the amount of money in the House bill was approximately $3 billion above that of the Senate bill. We were able to pare that down very substantially, to the point that I have been advised tonight that the President will be willing to sign this bill.
I also congratulate the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. CHAFEE) for all the assistance he gave in seeing this matter through to its culmination.
I yield now to the distinguished chairman of the full committee, who, as I have often said, has done much in trying to develop the highway system of this Nation and has been in the forefront of building what has been the major public works project in the world, the Interstate Highway System, which is now 92 percent completed.