Rescissions Rescissions

Y'know how sometimes you read about how the government does things and suddenly you aren't surprised that they under count the census or screw up a presidential election or other trivial matters. This is one of those moments.

So it seems when Congress passed the SAFETEA-LU Act, otherwise known as the transportation bill, they included $8.708 billion they didn't have. How can you do that? Easy. You just add a rescission that forces every state to give some of their money back - in amounts totaling $8.708 billion - at the end of the 6 years. This way the bill fits within federal budgeting parameters, and later you can find the money to fill the hole, because there's always money later. Then you just repeal the rescission.

But, as it turns out, the rescission wasn't repealed despite the efforts of several key lawmakers.So now the states (and DC) have to hand back some of their unobligated money.

The law required that the money handed back hit each program, everything from the High Risks Rural Roads Program (whatever that is) to Recreational Trails (you can see a full list under #4 here (pdf)), somewhat proportionally. So every state has to hand back some from each of the programs, but they have flexibility in that they can give back up to 110% of the FHWA determined amount to give more from any one program, so that they can give less than 100% of other programs.

An example: If DC has to give back $1000 of it's High Risk Rural Roads Program (HRRRP) funding and $2000 of it's Recreation Trails money it can chose to instead give back $1100 of HRRRP and then only give $1900 or Rec Trails.  Or it could give back $800 or HRRRP and $2200 of Rec Trails. Depending on it's priorities.

For the three big bike/ped programs Transportation Enhancements (TE), Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) and Recreational Trails, America Bikes looked at what each state rescinded.

How did our local jurisdictions do?

Virginia gave back the FHWA formula amount for each (100%).

• $5.6M for TE
• $13.2M for CMAQ
• $357k for Trails

But Maryland and DC gave back the maximum amount (110%) from each of them. 

MD

• $3.5M for TE ($318k extra)
• $14.4M for CMAQ ($1.3M extra)
• $330k for Trails ($30k extra)

DC

• $920k for TE ($84k extra)
• $2.5M for CMAQ ($245k extra)
• $235k for Trails ($21k extra)

This reminds me of a Chris Rock joke.

You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? He's saying "I would pay you less, but it's against the law."

Some states gave back less than 100%. Alaska, for example. "Bridge to nowhere, drill baby drill, our representative named the transportation bill 'Lu' after his wife" Alaska gave back $0 of it's TE money. 

I couldn't find anything about the three states Safe Routes to School rescission.

Comments

[Kenney]

Here's another great article on the rescission: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2009/10/20/how-the-8-7-billion-transportation-contracting-gap-is-hitting-your-state/.

Also, keep in mind that the rescission applies to "unobligated" funds, so some states didn't actually lose very much money, if anything at all. In addition, this is money that can be restored once Congress can come to an agreement on the new transportation bill, which expired September 30th, and was extended to October 30th. Sometime before then, Congress is likely to extend the bill another 6 to 18 months, which means a delay in the increased funding sought by Rep. Oberstar.