House Panel Votes to Cut DOT Spending by $646M

A House panel approved legislation Tuesday to slash Department of Transportation funding by over $600 million, The Hill reported.

The House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, housing and urban development advanced a spending bill by voice vote to provide $17.8 billion in discretionary funding for the DOT in fiscal 2018 – $646 million less than current levels, but $1.5 billion more than what President Donald Trump requested, The Hill reported.

"The chairman was dealt a very difficult hand, and as a result, we are not investing enough in our housing and transportation infrastructure to maintain it, let alone expand it," Rep. David Price, D-N.C., told The Hill.

The spending measure would kill the $500 million-a-year Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant program – a popular funding tool created by the Obama administration.

"It seems the program's only fault, in the view of its critics, is that it was established by President [Barack] Obama," Price told The Hill.

But $900 million from another grant program known as New Starts and the money leftover from cutting TIGER grants was salvaged to go toward a critical rail-and-tunnel project in the Northeast known as the Gateway Program, The Hill reported.

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said the program "is so important for my constituents in New York, and the economy of the Northeast region, and the nation as a whole," The Hill reported.

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