	Introduction

The Obama Administration released its FY2016 budget request on February 2, 2015. It requested $93.7 billion for the Department of Transportation (DOT), $22 billion (31%) more than DOT received in FY2015. DOT's discretionary budget allocation is shared with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as the allocation is given to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) appropriations bill. With other changes in offsets recommended by the House Appropriations Committee, the net increase in discretionary funding is $25 million, and the committee recommended a $25 million reduction in mandatory funding, so there is no net change in actual funding in the committee-recommended House THUD bill from FY2015. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 ( P.L. And while the House and Senate are currently negotiating the differences between their versions of surface transportation authorization legislation ( H.R. 22 ), the FY2016 funding levels provided in both the House and Senate bills are not significantly higher than the FY2015 levels. The scale of DOT's annual funding coming from these funds is not entirely obvious in DOT budget tables; for while virtually all of the funding from the Highway Trust Fund is in the form of contract authority (which is a form of mandatory budget authority), most of the funding from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund is in the form of discretionary budget authority and so is mingled with the discretionary budget authority provided from the general fund of the Treasury. DOT FY2016 Appropriations

		Recent Events

On November 10, 2015, the House and Senate went to conference to resolve their differences on H.R. 114-74 ) on October 30, 2015, which increased the amount of budget authority available for nondefense accounts for FY2016 by $24.6 billion. The requested funding is $22 billion more than that enacted for FY2015. The Administration request reflected its surface transportation reauthorization proposal, which called for significant increases in funding for highways, transit, and intercity rail. One reason for the shortfall in the fund is that the federal gas tax has not been raised since 1993. Congress has continued to support the TIGER program through annual DOT appropriations. After the restructuring of DOT programs in the 2012 surface transportation reauthorization, the TIGER program is virtually the only remaining discretionary grant program for surface transportation other than the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grant program (popularly referred to as New Starts), discussed below. The Senate-reported bill would provide a total of $283 million, the requested amount. The Administration's FY2016 budget request included $875 million for the cost of positive train control implementation on commuter railroad routes; neither the House-passed nor Senate-reported bill included funding specifically for this purpose, though the Senate-reported bill recommends $50 million for rail safety grant programs. H.Rept. Intercity Passenger Rail Development

Reflecting the Administration's surface transportation reauthorization proposal, the budget proposed a total of $4.8 billion for a new National High Performance Rail System program within FRA, consisting of two grant programs: $2.45 billion for a Current Passenger Rail Service grant program (which would primarily fund maintenance and improvement of existing intercity passenger rail service, i.e., Amtrak) and $2.325 billion for a Rail Service Improvement grant program (which would fund new intercity passenger rail projects as well as some improvements to freight rail). Funding provided in H.R. Amtrak

The Administration proposal for a new Current Passenger Rail Service account would almost double the amount Congress provided Amtrak in FY2015. The House-passed bill would provide $1.148 billion for Amtrak for FY2016, 17% below the FY2015 amount. For FY2016, the Administration requested $3.25 billion for the program, $1.13 billion (53%) more than the $2.12 billion provided in FY2015. The House-passed bill would provide $1.92 billion, roughly $200 million (9%) less than the FY2015 level. The Senate-reported bill recommends $1.585 billion, 25% ($535 million) below the FY2015 level. The federal share for New Starts projects, by statute, can be up to 80%. For FY2016, the House-passed H.R. 2577 would provide $100 million, $50 million less than in previous years. The House Committee on Appropriations had initially recommended $75 million, and in the committee report accompanying H.R. During committee markup, an amendment was approved adding $25 million to the WMATA funding.
On February 2, 2015, the Obama Administration proposed a $93.7 billion budget for the Department of Transportation (DOT) for FY2016. That is about $22 billion (31%) more than was provided in FY2015. The budget request for DOT reflected the Administration's call for significant increases in funding for highway, transit, and rail programs. Neither the surface transportation reauthorization legislation (H.R. 22) that the House and Senate are currently negotiating nor the DOT appropriations bill as passed by the House or reported out by the Senate Committee on Appropriations (H.R. 2577) would increase transportation funding on the scale requested by the Administration.
The annual appropriations for DOT are combined with those for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) appropriations bill. The House has passed H.R. 2577, which would provide FY2016 appropriations for THUD. The House-passed version of H.R. 2577 would provide $70.6 billion for DOT, $1 billion less than DOT received in FY2015 (after rescissions are subtracted from the FY2015 total, the difference is reduced to $646 million) and $23 billion less than the Administration request.
The House-passed bill cuts funding for Amtrak by $242 million (17%) from its FY2015 level, to $1.148 billion, less than half the amount requested by the Administration. The House Appropriations Committee marked up the bill one day after an Amtrak passenger train derailed in Philadelphia, which raised the profile of the cuts to Amtrak funding. The House-passed bill also includes significant cuts to the TIGER discretionary grant program and the transit New Starts program. For TIGER, the bill would provide $100 million, an 80% reduction from the $500 million provided in FY2015 and $1.15 billion below the Administration request. For New Starts, it would provide $1.9 billion, a 9% reduction from the $2.1 billion provided in FY2015 and $1.3 billion below the Administration request. These three programs account for most of the bill's cut in transportation funding from the FY2015 level.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations reported a version of H.R. 2577 providing $71.3 billion for DOT, a reduction of $368 million from the FY2015 level (after rescissions are subtracted from the FY2015 total, the difference is reduced to $17 million) and $22 billion less than the Administration request. The committee recommended funding the TIGER grant program and Amtrak at their FY2015 levels. It recommended a 25% ($535 million) cut to the New Starts transit grant program, the major change in the recommended FY2016 levels from FY2015 levels.
On November 18, 2015, the Senate Committee on Appropriations released a substitute amendment to H.R. 2577 that would increase DOT discretionary funding by $690 million, reflecting the Balanced Budget Act of 2015 (which increased the amount of budget authority for FY2016). Specifically, the substitute amendment would change the following accounts:
Under the Office of the Secretary, the National Infrastructure Investment (TIGER) grant account would change from $500 million to $600 million. The Federal Aviation Administration Facilities & Equipment account would change from $2.6 billion to $2.855 billion. The Federal Transit Administration Capital Investment grant (New Starts) account would change from $1.585 billion to $1.896 billion. The Maritime Administration account would change from $373 million to $397 million.
The remainder of this report has not been updated to reflect the substitute amendment.