With just two months before the program's expiration, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is set to move a surface transportation reauthorization bill as leadership strives to move the jobs package.

The T&I Committee is set to publicly release the long-awaited bill -- which covers highways, rail, transit and maritime policy -- tomorrow with a markup set for Thursday. The scheduled markup comes after months of work on the bill.

The bill will draw funding from the gas tax, a suite of domestic energy production bills and other offsets to be moved through the Ways and Means Committee. It is unclear when the Ways and Means Committee will move its language -- although some have speculated it will come this week -- and the Natural Resources Committee is set to mark up its energy bills Wednesday (see related story).

House leadership has signaled that they will combine the bills in the coming weeks with the goal of passing the reauthorization bill in mid to late February. The current program expires March 31.

GOP leadership casts the bills as a job creation tool, which is part of the reason it has committed to moving the bill as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Senate is working on a two-year, $109 billion bill, setting up a potentially testy conference showdown on the reauthorization.

The five-year bill from T&I Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) will fund programs at $52 billion a year, keeping them at roughly current levels. Mica had previously pitched a six-year bill that would stay within the receipts from the federal gas tax, requiring cuts of upward of 30 percent.

At press time, details of the bill had not been officially released -- members of the committee were only given the bill Friday, but a draft summary circulating in Congress showed that the committee would transfer some responsibility to states. The bill would also contain measures to streamline project delivery by cutting or aligning some reviews and establishing firm deadlines for federal agencies to issue permits and approvals.

The summary also includes language that has alarmed alternative transportation advocates by removing a required set-aside for so-called Transportation Enhancements, a program that funds pedestrian, bike and other non-highway infrastructure. Instead, the bill grants states the authority to spend money on such infrastructure.

The bill also contains hefty cuts to Amtrak, slashing the rail agency's operating subsidy by 25 percent in fiscal 2012 and 2013 and placing further limits on its federal funds to ensure better service.

The bill would maintain funding to public transportation programs, encouraging public-private partnerships, while also streamlining the New Starts and Small Starts grant programs to ensure quicker delivery.

Maritime

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) will continue to lobby key colleagues to build support for a popular but so-far-omitted provision that would roughly double spending on dredging and maintenance at U.S. ports and harbors.

The language would come from a standalone bill Boustany introduced in January 2011 that now has 163 bipartisan co-sponsors. The bill was not included in drafts circulated last week.

Called the RAMP Act, for "Restore America's Maritime Promise," H.R. 104 would require that the full amount of what the federal government collects annually for harbor maintenance in the form of an ad valorem import tax -- about $1.5 billion annually -- be spent on just that: harbor maintenance (E&E Daily, Oct. 28, 2011).

Currently, only about half does. For years, the other half has been used to offset spending on other programs.

Meanwhile, the lower Mississippi River and others are silting and in need of dredging. Earlier this month, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), a strong supporter of RAMP, pointed to a 738-foot coal freighter run aground as evidence of the need for more dredging.

Boosters of the bill in Congress, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and in the dredging industry, among others, call it an economic and trade imperative. They note that 26 percent of ports are dredged to their authorized depths despite an anticipated doubling of freight tonnage by 2035.

But because the bill would change House rules, forcing a point of order when the full amount collected is not spent as mandated, the bill faces resistance by both Rules and Appropriations committee members.

Winning a critical mass of support from Rules Committee members is seen as essential by Transportation Committee leaders before the bill could be folded into a maritime title. Already, the bill has 17 Appropriations Committee members signed on, including six subcommittee chairs.

Boustany was making calls Friday "to gain support and make sure everyone knows it's a priority," said his chief of staff, Jeff Dobrozsi. "We are working to make sure that members of the Rules Committee know the support the maritime title H.R. 104 would have."

Other objections center on where the money would come from, given that tight spending limits put in place as part of the debt-limit deal have rendered spending within the Energy and Water appropriations bill a zero-sum game. More spent on dredging means more cut from other areas. Some fear major environmental restoration projects such as the one underway in the Florida Everglades could take the hit.

Dobrozsi had a different suggestion.

"If you assume $500 million of that would be cut from somewhere else, then all you have to point to is Solyndra and some of the other wasteful programs that have been part of the administration's green energy program," he said.

Schedule: The markup is Thursday, Feb. 2, at 9 a.m. in 2167 Rayburn.