The House on Nov. 6 debated its proposed $93 billion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development budget for five hours before adjourning without a floor vote shortly after 9 p.m.
The chamber is expected to resume HR 4820 deliberations by early afternoon on Nov. 7 as the Republican-led House attempts to adopt the eighth of the 12 appropriations packages that constitute the annual federal budget.
As with at least five of the seven FY24 budget bills adopted by the House, the chamber’s Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) spending plan is certain to be rejected in the Democrat-led Senate as days wind down before a stopgap measure funding the federal government expires Nov. 17.
The House adjourned after the en blanc adoption of 25 amendments and with 38-of-49 proposed amendments remaining on the docket.
Among them are proposals to strip funding for the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and federal grant funding for the Washington D.C. metro train system.
Considering HR 4820 already trims mass transit funding by 85 percent, Amtrak spending by 64 percent, defunds regulatory allocations for assistance in greenhouse gas and carbon emission reduction targets and cuts money for numerous housing programs, Democrats questioned if Republicans were serious about adopting a budget before Nov. 17.
“I worry that we no longer have two parties willing to meet today’s challenges,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said. “This bill would cripple our economy, eliminate thousands of jobs. And I must underscore that this a messaging bill. I am taking Republicans at their word, as should all of the American people: This is where they plan to take this country.”
House Rules Committee Chair Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the proposed budget cuts, rescissions, regulatory roll-backs, and funding shifts are necessary because of where the Biden administration and Democrats have taken the country: $33 trillion in debt.
“We regret we have to make some adjustments,” Mr. Cole said, “but we need to begin to bring this deficit down. This legislation responsibly does that.”
Cuts, Rescissions, BIL/IRA ‘Offsets’
The Senate has adopted three FY24 budget bills: the Military Construction-VA budget; the Agriculture spending plan; and its $101.6 billion THUD budget.
The House $93 billion THUD bill’s top lines fall more than $18 billion below the Biden administration’s $108.5 billion budget request and nearly $8.6 billion below the budget approved by the Senate.
Moved to the floor by the House Rules Committee in a partisan 8-3 Nov. 1 vote, HR 4820 spells out the chamber’s FY24 spending plans for the DOT and HUD.
“This bill responsibly funds our most critical transportation and housing needs and will have a positive impact on every Congressional district in the country. At the same time, the bill meets the challenge before us to reduce spending and get our debt under control,” Mr. Cole said.
Through “a rescission of IRS funds,” cuts in “excessive spending,” and carry-over FY23 allocations, he said, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates HR 4820’s actual FY24 expenditures at $65 billion.
With many DOT and HUD agencies and programs already receiving billions in allocations through 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) and 2022’s Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA), Mr. Cole said HR 4820 “offsets” guaranteed funding from those measures with FY24 budget cuts.
Not true, Ms. DeLauro said. “Thirteen of our colleagues in the majority supported the BIL and even if they did not, they have not missed the ribbon-cuttings,” she said.
BIL “was never intended to replace annual appropriations. We cannot make laws [with] historic infrastructure investments while gutting the annual appropriations that close the funding gap on complex and costly projects,” Ms. DeLauro said. “We’re setting our transportation infrastructure back decades.”
“This is a bad bill at a bad time,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said. “This bill touches the lives of every American. Yet, this bill undercuts the fundamental values of the American people at the expense of the lowest income families.”
The White House’s Office of Budget & Management (OMB) blasted the House’s proposed cuts in an Oct. 30 statement, which concluded in underlined emphasis, “If the President were presented with HR 4820, he would veto it.”
House DOT Plan $6.5 Less Than Senate’s
HR 4820’s proposed $21.6 billion DOT budget is $7 billion below FY23’s enacted levels and $6.2 billion less than the $27.8 billion requested by the president. It is nearly $6.5 billion less than the $28.43 billion DOT plan approved by the Senate.
Mr. Cole said the bill “includes provisions that will scale back the Biden administration’s regulatory overreach” in implementing various BIL and IRA “green energy” provisions and “cutting red tape” across the regulatory spectrum.
The regulatory weight of meeting greenhouse gas and carbon emission reduction targets in highway and public housing projects “will be particularly burdensome for small and rural communities” and hamper efforts to “create a fair playing field for American manufacturers,” he said.
“I’m pleased we will consider several amendments that will do even more to keep a check on the excesses of the administration,” Mr. Cole added.
None of this is going to fly in the Senate, and President Joe Biden has already threatened to veto it, Ms. DeLauro said, asking Republicans just what they are hoping to achieve.
“It will take bipartisan, bicameral support” to get a FY24 budget passed before Nov. 17, she said. “I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and this partisan charade, join Democrats at the negotiating table.”
Transit, Research Cuts
Both the House and Senate DOT budgets allocate $12.74 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to hire 1,800 air traffic controllers “needed to meet projected traffic demands.”
Mr. Cole said HR 4820 also funds “critical air traffic control modernization programs. We all feel the impact of a sustained and restrained air traffic control system. This bill will address some of those strains,” he said. “These investments will generate economic growth and ensure uninterrupted air service, which is critical for rural and remote communities and metropolitan areas alike.”
The House bill falls $500 million short of the administration’s budget request for National Airspace System technology upgrades, which the Senate bill completely funds.
The House’s proposed DOT budget trims aviation research funding by more than 20 percent, which the OMB and Democrats maintain would undermine the FAA’s ability to promote innovations that would lower noise and emissions, improve efficiency, and help the industry keep flight costs under control.
The proposed House DOT budget provides $392 million for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), a $2.2 billion, or 85-percent reduction, from FY23’s enacted level and the near-complete inverse of the Senate’s proposed $16.865 billion FTA allocation.
The Senate’s plan provides $2.45 billion in Capital Investment Grants and $365.8 million in Transit Investment Grants for buses, bus facilities, low/no-emission programs, and $43 million for urban and rural ferries.
Both the House and Senate DOT budgets earmark $60.9 billion for highways and bridges through the Highway Trust Fund.
“These resources are directly allocated to our state departments of transportation, enabling state and local governments to collaborate on the highest priority road projects,” Mr. Cole said. “The bill prioritizes safety programs at the DOT to ensure that our roads and railways are safe for freight haulers and the traveling public.”
Amtrak Spending Derailed
HR 4820 earmarks $876 million in grants to Amtrak, 64 percent below FY23 $2.4 billion enacted level, and would potentially eliminate several long-distance routes and planned Northeast Corridor improvements.
Amtrak usually receives $2 billion in annual federal subsidies but House Republicans maintain it doesn’t need that much in FY24 because it is already receiving $4.4 billion in BIL grants.
Even with the 64-percent slash in its annual budget, Amtrak would receive a little over $5 billion in funding in FY24, House Republicans maintain.
The Democrat-led Senate’s FY24 Amtrak appropriation matches the administration’s $2.4 budget request, which would mean it would actually receive $6.8 billion in funding next year.
HR 4820 would slash Amtrak’s “Northeast Corridor funding by 92 percent, crippling the entire national network from Florida to New York, Texas to California, and in my own district, from Chicago to Arkansas, Montana and all the way in the Pacific Northwest,” Mr. Quigley said, noting the House measure cuts more than $7 billion for freight rail transit safety improvements.
“Compounding these concerns are several controversial policy riders that unnecessarily attack high-speed rail, roll-back transportation safety, and call into question the civil rights protections for most Americans,” he said. “This bill does not represent what a majority of our constituents have called us to do.”
Mr. Cole made three points in defending the House’s Amtrak cuts. “First, prior to the passage of the [BIL], the Northeast Corridor normally received about $650 to $700 million for capital improvements on an annual basis. This was at a time when Amtrak was nearly profitable.
“Today’s ridership levels are still not back to where they were then,” he continued. “And changing work patterns indicate that they may never return to those same level.”
Mr. Cole said even with the 64 percent slash in its annual appropriation, with BIL and IRA funding “the total support for the Northeast Corridor is still double what it was prior to November of 2021. Double.”
Clearly, he said, Amtrak has money, as his third point illustrates: “This week [DOT] announced $16.4 billion in funding for projects along the Northeast Corridor with $16.2 billion of those dollars going to projects where Amtrak is the sponsor or one of the core beneficiaries of the project.”
Continuing to funnel subsidies in the form of “funding higher than Amtrak has ever, ever seen in the past—particularly given the fact that their ridership is at its lowest level”—makes no sense, Mr. Cole said.
“The thing that my colleagues never address is we’re running a $2 trillion [annual] deficit” and simply can’t afford to subsidize Amtrak as it loses $750 million a year, he said.
‘Worst Housing Bill’ Ever
The House’s proposed $70.9 billion HUD spending plan is $1.2 billion less than FY23’s enacted level and $3.4 billion below the Biden administration’s $73.3 billion request.
The Senate’s HUD budget line allocates $59.7 billion in FY24 “budget authority” but under emergency funding approved in FY23 and renewed in a Senate-adopted emergency housing funding measure, HUD will receive $10.4 billion, raising its Senate top line to $73 billion.
The House bill proposes funding HUD at $68.2 billion, a $6.4 billion, or 10-percent increase, in its FY23 budget. Citing increased costs for rent, which have raised housing assistance allocation, and lower receipts from Federal Housing Administration rental revenues that offset HUD’s budget, the department requested and received a $13 billion increase to maintain current assistance and services.
But HR 4820 eliminates Housing Voucher funding for approximately 15,000 families, allows one-third of the administration’s $1.5 billion HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and cuts $564 million from programs that mitigate lead poisoning and other illnesses in lower-income housing.
“If enacted,” OMB states, the House’s proposed housing spending plan “would severely exacerbate the affordable housing challenges for low-income families throughout the nation.”
HR 4820 “is among the worst, if not the worst, housing appropriations bill that has ever come to the House floor,” Rep. Maxine Waters said. “This bill would exacerbate the affordable housing crisis by slashing the federal housing budget by nearly 30 percent.”
