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8A Page 4 Congress Busy in Final Weeks of Federal Fiscal Year Congress retumed this week from its August recess to a full agenda: completion of the FY 2010 appropriations work,approving a comprehensive health care reform package and advancing climate protection(egislation. Important to cities, Congress must also agree on a legisiative solution that provides sutficient funding to maintain the Highway Trust Fund.This funding source expires on Sept.30 with the current national transportation law, SAFETEA-LU. FY 2010 Appropriations The new federal fiscal year statts Oct. 1. Between now and then,the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will likely be forced to pass a short-term stop-gap funding resolutioh. Cal{ed a continuing resolution or CR,the would maintain funding at a fixed level and for a specific period of time for all federal govemment programs contained in any of the 12 FY 2�10 approprlations bills that have not been signed into law by�ct. 1.Traditionally CR's maintain funding for programs within these unfinished bills at the amount at which they were funded in the previous fiscal year.Although House and Senate leadership has not indicated the duration of the CR, it is expected to last six weeks or less. Prior to adjouming for its summer recess,the House completed action on al! 12 of its FY 2010 spending measures.The Senate passed just four of its budget bi(Is:energy and water, homeland security,agriculture and legislative branch.The Senate should finfsh action this month on its FY 2010 Transportation-Housing and Urban Development(THUD),interior-environment and commerce-justice and science bills. If the Senate approves these bills,there will only be flve outstanding measures to consider before the start of the new fiscal year:defense,financial services,labor-health and human services education,military construction-veterans affairs and state-foreign operations.Afl of these bills have been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee except the defense bill. Transportation Reauthorization Congress must now determine how it will resume funding for federal transportation programs in the face of the Sept.30 expira�on of the Safe,Accountable, Flexible,Efficient Transportation Equity Act:A Legacy for Users(SAFETEA-LU}. House and Senate Transportation Committee leaders must also decide how to they intend to maintain funding for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF).Congress extended$7 billion to(t before breaking for fhe August recess to keep the fund � operating through September. However,a strohg division still remains between House and Senate transportation committee leaders on the best path to follow in reauthorizing SAFETEA- LU. The House Transportation and Infrastructure's Highways and Transit Subcommittee on June 24 unanimously approved a$500 billion transportation reauthorization bill.James Oberstar(D-MN), chair of the Transportatlon and Infrastructure Commii#ee continues to press colleagues to move forward with the Committee's full reauthorization instead of the 1&month of extension proposed by the White House. ' However the chair has indicated that if a full reauthorization can not be completed before the end of this month,he is in favor of a three-to-six month extension of SAFETEA-LU to maintain pressure on colleagues to work towards approval of a fuq scale six-year reauthorization measure soone�. The Highways and Transit Subcommittee-approved bill,the Surface Transportation Authorization Act(STAA},would authorize federal transportadon programs for the next six years. Funding targets in the bill would double the federal investment in surface transportation and provide$337 billion for highways,$99.8 billion for mass transit,$50 billion for high-speed rail and$12.6 billion for highway safety.The measure does not inciude the authorization amounts for speciflc accounts ' and projects pending House Ways and Means Committee writing of the revenue ti�le of the bill that will structure how the bill will be flnanced. The Senate Environment and Public Works and Banking,Housing and Urban Affairs Committees in July passed bills extending current transportation law for 18 months in accordance with the 4 �