The fiscal year 2010 transportation and housing appropriations bill includes a line item that instructs no funding may be used to enforce charter service regulations agreed upon three years ago by the Federal Transit Administration, NSTA and the American Public Transportation Association.

H.R. 3288 will fund the U.S. Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development through next September. It was reported last week out of the Senate and now heads to a joint House-Senate committee before heading to President Obama’s desk. Earlier this month, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington State succeeded in adding Section 170 to the FTA administrative provisions that “no funds provided by the bill maybe used to enforce charter service under the Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulation, Part 604.

Robin Leeds, NSTA’s industry specialist, said there is speculation that Sen. Murray added the language at the request of King County Metro Transit in Seattle due to a dispute over charter service to Seattle Mariners baseball games and in an effort to gain a larger transportation role for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“This particular maneuver has nothing to do with the school bus rule, though that could be the next target,” wrote Leeds in a recent email to School Transportation News. “It would affect school activity charters if the language is adopted.”

NSTA added in its Sept. 8 newsletter that it would fight the language as part of the Coalition of Private Passenger Transportation Organizations.