A Commuter Rail Sound Bite with John Cline

Commuter Rail Coalition CEO, KellyAnne Gallagher hosts John Cline, CRC Director of Government Relations (Cline Strategic Consulting), to kick off our first edition of CRC Sound Bites. Join us for a conversation on Continuing Resolutions, Appropriations, and the IIJA, as well as what commuter rail advocates can be doing now.

Transcript

Narrator  0:07  
Thank you for joining us for a commuter rail coalition soundbite where we bring you critical information impacting commuter rail systems across North America.

KellyAnne Gallagher  0:27  
John Cline, welcome to our first edition of CRC Sound Sites. Thanks for joining me for this conversation on continuing resolutions, appropriations and the IIJA. Back in the fall, President Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which includes significant increases in the formula and discretionary funding of transit systems. Commuter Rail Coalition members will almost certainly realize significant funding increases as a result of the IIJA. I've recently seen this issue get attention in the industry press, but in early November, you noted in the CRC weekly bulletin, that none of those increases will be realized until Congress enacts an FY 2022 appropriations bill because, as you said, "Continuing resolutions generally restrict spending to the previous year's spending limits, plus some marginal inflationary allowance." At that time, we were operating under a continuing resolution set to expire December 3, and that's the structure of the CR we are operating under currently, which is now due to expire on February 18. Help me understand what we might expect to happen in the next few weeks.

John Cline  1:39  
Right. Well, it's a pleasure to be here with you. And thanks for the opportunity to address it. This is obviously an important issue. As you noted, we're operating under a continuing resolution, which pretty much a standstill provision that keeps the federal government operational using the prior fiscal year appropriation levels. And as you noted, you know, my comments and others who have pointed out that unfortunately, what ends up happening under these continuing resolutions is that new authorized levels in this case, those that are included in the infrastructure bill that was enacted last summer are not achieved under a continuing resolution. So it's certainly in the best interest of of our members, the entire transportation industry, to get to a final resolution of the appropriations bill for the current fiscal year that we're operating in, which is fiscal year 2022. Where things stand right now, always hard to predict. There are ongoing meetings on the Hill. And to boil it down to where the difference lies, it really is a difference between how much money is going to be spent on defense versus non-defense issues. And you know, shortly before the end of the year 2021, President Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act for for 2022. And it basically represented about a 5.1% increase in funding over the prior year, about 37 and a half billion dollars, but the House Appropriations bills that had passed earlier in the session will reflect about a $110 billion increase a 17% increase in spending. And so Republicans have been objecting to that in past years, when Republicans were in control. The Democrats had objected when defense spending exceeded what was being provided for non-defense spending. And they often settled on an agreement to increase amounts equally in both categories. Getting there this time is hard to do, because there's a big difference between what is being proposed for non-defense. And you know, any additional spending, of course, just goes right into the deficit. First, Republicans are opposed to that and there are also a lot of progressive Democrats in the House who are opposed to any more defense spending, and frankly, they don't like the 5% increase. So even in Speaker Pelosi's own caucus, if she were to cut a deal, let's cut the baby in half, we'll come up with a number where we're equally increasing spending for defense and non-defense. I think she'd have problems in her own caucus getting that through. And of course, the same pertains over on the Senate side, Senator Shelby for the Republicans has strongly objected to differences in the spending. And of course, what that led to in the Senate, they were not only unable to pass anything through the Senate floor, it couldn't even get it through the Appropriations Committee. So they're operating off of - effectively - a committee draft that the Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont had developed. So, you know, the playing field here is not easy. Getting to a solution seems to be even more challenging this year than past years. And so I think if I had one prediction, I would say that this February 18 deadline that is fast approaching, when the current continuing resolution expires, is going to be hard to you know, achieve a full omnibus appropriations bills. So I would predict that we're probably going to see another extension, hopefully a short term extension. Maybe it takes it into early March. But in all likelihood, unless a dam breaks here soon, we're probably looking at another extension.

KellyAnne Gallagher  5:14  
Okay, well, what can or should the CRC members be doing to impact this process?

John Cline  5:21  
So I think the key thing for everyone to be doing is communicating with their congressional delegation, the importance, the absolute critical importance of achieving a final deal on the appropriations bill. There is a very real chance we could end up with continuing resolutions that take us through the entire fiscal year. And I hate to use the term disaster, but it's certainly not a good outcome for us, because what it means is that any of the increased funding levels that were enacted in the infrastructure bill would not be realized in this fiscal year. Now, some of the pain under that circumstance is mitigated by the fact that Congress put provisions into the infrastructure bill called advanced appropriations, which has been a marginally used tactic in the past on other accounts to effectively push appropriations through without actually having to have an annual appropriations bill accomplish it. Some of the programs, for example, under the the New Starts Program, that the Federal Transit Administration administers, have big increases in that program, and a significant chunk of it is through advanced appropriations. So you would see some increased funding there. And same thing goes for the federal state partnership for intercity passenger rail grants. Again, a fairly sizable chunk goes out by advanced appropriations. So it's not a complete loss in the sense that we wouldn't see any of the benefits of the infrastructure bill. But there are a whole host of other programs that do not benefit from advanced appropriations. And so as a result, the transit industry in general and particularly commuter rail, really can make a compelling argument that they're not going to see the true benefits of this infrastructure bill realized.

KellyAnne Gallagher  7:08  
Right, well, we've got our work cut out for us as usual. Thanks again for making time for us today, John, I appreciate it. And we'll see you again soon.

John Cline  7:17  
Great, thanks, pleasure being with you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai