Shortly after the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced a short-term transportation authorization earlier this week, which would fund and extend authorization for federal highway and transit programs through November 20, the House of Representatives formally approved the legislation yesterday.
The short-term bill, entitled H.R. 3819, The Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2015, was introduced by House T&I Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA), Committee Ranking Member Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI).
“Last week, the Transportation Committee unanimously approved bipartisan, multi-year surface transportation legislation, and today’s Surface Transportation Extension Act will ensure that states can continue to fund transportation projects while Congress continues to make progress on the multi-year bill,” Shuster said in a statement.
Should this be signed into law, would mark the fourth extension of the current surface transportation authorization, MAP-21, and the 35th short-term extension since the last multi-year authorization expired. The current short-term extension has been intact since late July.
Also included in the legislation is an extension for Positive Train Control technology to be implemented by the end of this year. Various reports said the legislation called for a 2018 extension.
A mandate for PTC systems was included in House and Senate legislation- The Rail Safety and Improvement Act of 2008. The legislation was passed after a September 12, 2008 collision between a freight train and a commuter train in Los Angeles. PTC has received renewed attention, following a tragic Amrtak accident in the Philadelphia area earlier this year. As per the mandate, the December 31, 2015 deadline requires freight railroads to install Positive Train Control (PTC) technology on 40 percent of its network.
But railroads have made it clear they will not meet this deadline, and the House T&I Committee said that without an extension freight railroads have indicated shipments of various chemicals will be suspended before the end of 2015, while in some other cases it said freight railroads will suspend all shipments of commodities.
Shuster said that without a PTC extension freight railroads will need to stop shipping important chemicals that are critical to manufacturing, agriculture, clean drinking water, and other industrial activities, coupled with halting passenger and commuter rail transportation.