House Republican budget plan would handcuff rail grants

While Senate Republican leaders have said they won’t go along with legislation to block the state from spending $461 million in federal railroad improvement grants, some House Republicans have redoubled their effort to kill the rail projects and return the money to Washington.

Rep. Ric Killian, a Mecklenburg County Republican who had pulled his kill bill from the House Transportation Committee agenda last week, said Thursday that the committee would resume debate on his proposal next week.

“That bill is still alive and well, and it is going to be heard in some way, shape or form next Tuesday,” Killian said at a meeting of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, which is debating the transportation section of the House budget plan.

Meanwhile, Killian and other House members have drafted a special budget provision that would take a different approach by subjecting the state Department of Transportation Rail Division to new, unusual layers of legislative oversight.  Killian co-chairs the appropriations subcommittee along with a co-sponsor of his anti-rail bill, Republican Rep. Phillip Frye of Avery County.

Their budget provision would require DOT to give the legislature detailed reports on all proposed federal railroad grants, with estimates on any money the state would be obligated to spend in matching dollars or for related operation and maintenance expenses over the next 25 years.  If those costs exceeded $5 million for any project, DOT would be barred from accepting the federal money without explicit approval from the legislature.

Democrats protested that these requirements would be too burdensome, especially if they were extended to the university system and other state entities that receive federal funds.

“For us to try to micromanage projects this way is setting a precedent I don’t think we can stand unless we become a full-time legislature,” said Rep. Ray Rapp, a Madison County Democrat. “I’m not sure we have the time to go through all these grants.”

Rep. Grier Martin, a Wake County Democrat, said the budget measure was an effort to kill money for jobs and improvements to passenger and freight rail service. He said Democrats were wrong a few years ago when they salvaged an unpopular state lottery bill by attaching it to the budget.

“They know their bill is in trouble,” Martin said of Killian and his supporters.  “So they’re putting it in as a special budget provision. It’s an abuse of the budget process, just as the way the lottery was passed was abusive.”

Rep. Fred F. Steen II, a Rowan County Republican who is backing Killian’s bill, supported the budget move. He said the federal grants would improve passenger service at the expense of freight service.

“Freight rail runs in the black, passenger rail runs in the red, so it sounds like we’re going a little bit in the wrong direction,” Steen said. 

The subcommitteee is expected to vote on the House transportation budget, including the special provisions, next Wednesday.