DOT’s Peters Disavows Commission’s Proposals
By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the Jan. 21 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — A congressional report calling for a huge new federal investment in transportation infrastructure financed by hefty tax increases brought sharp opposition from Republicans, including Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who led the commission.
Peters declined to appear when the commission presented its report Jan. 15 after nearly two years of study and hearings, and did not testify on it at a House Transportation Committee hearing Jan. 17.
Peters and two other commission members appointed by President Bush published a dissent that attacked the commission’s recommendation of a 25-to-40-cent increase in fuel taxes and said that the federal role in transportation financing should be reduced.
“Raising gas taxes won’t improve traffic congestion; it will only perpetuate our ineffective reliance on fossil-based fuels,” Peters said in her statement.
Peters was joined by former DOT Deputy Secretary Maria Cino and Rick Geddes, a professor at Cornell University. The other nine panel members agreed on the majority report.
The dissenters blasted the commission’s views on the federal role in transportation spending and what the three-person minority said was the imposition of “new federal restrictions on pricing and private investment.”
Peters’ dissent said the majority correctly pointed out the need for “national focus” on infrastructure but said the group “mistakenly converts this need into a recommendation for a larger federal role in directly financing and managing project development.”
Peters’ group said the federal government instead should “stimulate creative new investment approaches,” and focus solely on national issues such as highway safety, freight issues and preservation of the Interstate system.
The commission report, presented by Vice Chairman Jack Schenendorf, a lawyer with Covington and Burling, said, “To keep America competitive, we are recommending a significant increase in investment.” Schenendorf said the commission “estimated that, as a nation, we should be spending between $225 billion and $340 billion” annually on transportation. “We are currently spending less than 40% of that.”
The commission recommended raising revenue from a number of sources: higher fuel taxes, more tolls and private partnerships, higher taxes on the sale of heavy trucks and tires, and increased container fees, customs fees and levies on transit tickets.
“There is no free lunch,” Schenendorf said. “There is no way to accomplish what we are talking about without spending money.”
Other commissioners, appointed by various members of Congress, noted they were in bipartisan agreement, with five Republican appointees and four Democrats writing the majority report.
“It has become an absolute orthodoxy within the conservative movement that you can’t raise any kind of tax,” said commission member Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and self-described conservative Republican, “but in this particular instance, I don’t see any alternatives.”
The report, Schenendorf said, recommends that the United States “transition away from the gas tax to a vehicle-miles-traveled tax or something like that” by 2025 and that steps should be taken in the next highway bill.
Schenendorf said the commission majority backed giving “flexibility” to state and local governments to impose tolls on new interstate highway capacity and in metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, to alleviate congestion
The report also supported using private capital and public-private partnerships, so long as those projects “meet a series of conditions.”
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) who is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s highways subcommittee, said it was unfortunate Peters did not attend a Jan. 17 hearing on the report, to “defend the indefensible.”
“We need to invest in the public infrastructure. Public. Underline that. Public,” DeFazio said. “Ms. Peters and others don’t believe that there’s a national interest in public infrastructure. They propose that we would freeze the current federal investment, which means that, over the next 10 years, we would basically make it insignificant. With the increases in construction costs, that’s not acceptable.”
Some congressional Republicans were quick to reject the tax proposal.
“An orange traffic cone could have come up with a gas tax increase,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “Everyone knows most members of Congress will toss that recommendation right in the trash.”
“The commission’s recommendation of a dramatic increase in the gas tax does not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of passing Congress,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House transportation panel.
This story appears in the Jan. 21 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — A congressional report calling for a huge new federal investment in transportation infrastructure financed by hefty tax increases brought sharp opposition from Republicans, including Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who led the commission.
Peters declined to appear when the commission presented its report Jan. 15 after nearly two years of study and hearings, and did not testify on it at a House Transportation Committee hearing Jan. 17.
Peters and two other commission members appointed by President Bush published a dissent that attacked the commission’s recommendation of a 25-to-40-cent increase in fuel taxes and said that the federal role in transportation financing should be reduced.
“Raising gas taxes won’t improve traffic congestion; it will only perpetuate our ineffective reliance on fossil-based fuels,” Peters said in her statement.
Peters was joined by former DOT Deputy Secretary Maria Cino and Rick Geddes, a professor at Cornell University. The other nine panel members agreed on the majority report.
The dissenters blasted the commission’s views on the federal role in transportation spending and what the three-person minority said was the imposition of “new federal restrictions on pricing and private investment.”
Peters’ dissent said the majority correctly pointed out the need for “national focus” on infrastructure but said the group “mistakenly converts this need into a recommendation for a larger federal role in directly financing and managing project development.”
Peters’ group said the federal government instead should “stimulate creative new investment approaches,” and focus solely on national issues such as highway safety, freight issues and preservation of the Interstate system.
The commission report, presented by Vice Chairman Jack Schenendorf, a lawyer with Covington and Burling, said, “To keep America competitive, we are recommending a significant increase in investment.” Schenendorf said the commission “estimated that, as a nation, we should be spending between $225 billion and $340 billion” annually on transportation. “We are currently spending less than 40% of that.”
The commission recommended raising revenue from a number of sources: higher fuel taxes, more tolls and private partnerships, higher taxes on the sale of heavy trucks and tires, and increased container fees, customs fees and levies on transit tickets.
“There is no free lunch,” Schenendorf said. “There is no way to accomplish what we are talking about without spending money.”
Other commissioners, appointed by various members of Congress, noted they were in bipartisan agreement, with five Republican appointees and four Democrats writing the majority report.
“It has become an absolute orthodoxy within the conservative movement that you can’t raise any kind of tax,” said commission member Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and self-described conservative Republican, “but in this particular instance, I don’t see any alternatives.”
The report, Schenendorf said, recommends that the United States “transition away from the gas tax to a vehicle-miles-traveled tax or something like that” by 2025 and that steps should be taken in the next highway bill.
Schenendorf said the commission majority backed giving “flexibility” to state and local governments to impose tolls on new interstate highway capacity and in metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, to alleviate congestion
The report also supported using private capital and public-private partnerships, so long as those projects “meet a series of conditions.”
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) who is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s highways subcommittee, said it was unfortunate Peters did not attend a Jan. 17 hearing on the report, to “defend the indefensible.”
“We need to invest in the public infrastructure. Public. Underline that. Public,” DeFazio said. “Ms. Peters and others don’t believe that there’s a national interest in public infrastructure. They propose that we would freeze the current federal investment, which means that, over the next 10 years, we would basically make it insignificant. With the increases in construction costs, that’s not acceptable.”
Some congressional Republicans were quick to reject the tax proposal.
“An orange traffic cone could have come up with a gas tax increase,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “Everyone knows most members of Congress will toss that recommendation right in the trash.”
“The commission’s recommendation of a dramatic increase in the gas tax does not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of passing Congress,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House transportation panel.
