Congress Won’t Pass Transportation Bill, LaHood Says
Congress will not pass a new transportation bill, nor will it address the long-term funding crisis undermining the nation’s infrastructure, former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.
“The current Congress is not in a mood to pass a multiyear transportation bill, and certainly not in a mood to try and figure out how to fund infrastructure in America,” LaHood said during an April 4 conference call held by Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc.
“Given an election year . . . given the fact that it was so difficult to pass a two-year MAP-21 bill, it’s highly unlikely that there’ll be a transportation bill passed by the end of September,” he said.
MAP-21, the current transportation funding law, expires Sept. 30, and the Highway Trust Fund is expected to be insolvent by the late summer.
The situation is “bleak” for transportation stakeholders across the country, LaHood said, adding that he expects Congress will just pass extensions of MAP-21 and transfer money from the general fund to the trust fund.
What lawmakers should do is increase fuel taxes and index them to inflation, he said. Those taxes, he added, provided the “pot of money” that made America No. 1 in infrastructure in the world, a position the country no longer holds, he said.
The fuel tax has not been increased in 20 years, although several environmental and business groups, including American Trucking Associations and the U.S. Chamber of Congress, are pressing for higher diesel and gasoline taxes.
