Republicans want to fill a $40 billion gap in their five-year transportation bill with the savings from an overhaul of the federal retirement system, marking the latest GOP attempt to balance the budget with cuts to federal pay and benefits.

The new provision appears in the bill posted today on the House Rules Committee website. H.R. 7, or the "American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012," is a five-year, $260 billion energy and infrastructure package that generally keeps funding at current levels while offering longer-term assurances to states that depend on federal transportation funding.

The bill is partially funded with measures that would open the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas development, while requiring the Interior Department to lease hundreds of thousands of acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain.

But Republicans have had trouble filling a $40 billion gap left by a controversial decision to fold a transit account into a new "alternative transportation account." The tweak would mean the loss of a dedicated account fed with roughly 2.86 cents of the 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax; that money would instead go to the Highway Trust Fund.

The latest version of the bill fills that gap with H.R. 3813, which passed the Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday on a party-line vote (E&E Daily, Feb. 8). The bill -- introduced by Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) -- would increase the amount employees contribute to their retirement, as well as change the formula used to calculate their pensions.

In short, most federal employees would pay more for pensions worth less. And the savings from those provisions would be somewhere around $40 billion; almost identical language was in the House-passed GOP plan to extend the payroll tax holiday, and Republicans estimated they would save $36 billion.

A Democratic staffer on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said the inclusion was not a surprise, given the recent markup of H.R. 3813 and the fact that it saves almost exactly the needed amount. But Republicans did not confer with the minority before adding it, the staffer said.

Federal employee groups immediately accused Republicans of using federal employees as a "piggy bank." In a call with reporters this afternoon, officials from the American Federation of Government Employees said they plan to confront lawmakers about it next week when hundreds of members lobby Congress.

The group has so far spent this year fighting against the same provisions as they pop up in different places -- first in negotiations on how to pay for a payroll tax holiday extension, then in Ross' stand-alone bill.

"We think it's unconscionable to be talking about this in the context of a $160 billion payroll tax holiday for everyone else in America," AFGE Legislative Director Beth Moten said. "But it's unbelievable -- almost laughable, except that it's true -- that they would be using this to pay for a surface transportation bill so they don't have to raise the gas tax."

Transit backers have been up in arms over the decision to redirect the traditional set-aside in the federal gas tax for transit. Michael Melaniphy, president of the American Public Transportation Association, said in a conference call this morning that even assuring $40 billion initially does not solve the overarching problem.

"We hear them say that there's $40 billion, which is more than the original trust fund. But after 2016, there's no dedicated funding," he said, adding that trust funds are "a major component of how our transportation system is funded. There's an imbalance in how we're addressing mobility."