Senate Approves Long-Delayed Transportation Bill

The U.S. Senate's approved a transportation bill that could help accelerate a dozen local transportation projects in Los Angeles County, including a subway extension to Westwood and an extension of the Green Line to LAX.

The Senate voted 74-22 to approve a two-year, $109 billion transportation bill that includes a significant boost in funding for a federal loan program called America Fast Forward. Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa has said access to the money would help the county build 12 transit projects in 10 years instead of the scheduled 30 years.

“The bipartisan effort to create jobs and speed expansion of our transportation systems took a major step forward today with Senate passage of a surface transportation bill that includes America Fast Forward,'' Villaraigosa said.

He said Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., “showed remarkable bipartisan leadership on this bill.''

The bill, , is critical to the progress of the $1.4 billion Gold Line Foothill Extension Project, which is still $600 million short of funding to carry the project to Montclair, according to Authority Chairman and Glendora Mayor Doug Tessitor.

While the Gold Line is not eligible for federal transportation funding, Tessitor said the bill would fund other competing projects and open up other sources of funding for the Gold Line. 

The bill would also include language that would reduce requirements for the environmental impact review process for new development to CEQA, the state requirement, thus eliminating NEPA, the federal environmental impact process.

According to Tessitor, this would save the Gold Line extension project 18 months to two years in time, and $18 million to $24 million.

The bill still needs approval from the U.S. House of Representatives, which is working on its own five-year version that would require an expansion of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and off the East Coast.

That version was approved by the House Transportation Committee in February and is awaiting a vote by the full House.

“Progress is being made, despite efforts to declare the House bill dead,'' Transportation Committee spokesman Justin Harclerode said.

If the House gives final approval to its version, a reconciliation committee would be formed to iron out the differences between the House and Senate bills.

Congress is under a March 31 deadline to get a bill to President Barack Obama. If the deadline passes, transportation projects funded by the government's highway trust fund would grind to a halt, similar to when Congress failed to re-authorize the Federal Aviation Administration last July.

The bill would increase annual funding for federal loans and loan guarantees to significant transportation projects from $110 million to $1 billion. The so-called Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, funding is part of the section of the bill called America Fast Forward, a name Villaraigosa coined.

-- Hazel Lodevico-To'o contributed to this report.