Editorial: Confusion in Washington

It’s amazing how many people are saying very similar things regarding a real federal surface transportation plan, yet there’s little reason to believe that anything substantial will happen soon.

Executives from some of the nation’s largest fleets, speaking at the Nasstrac conference, told Washington they were willing to pay their fair share to see critical fixes to the nation’s roads and bridges.

The executives, many from less-than-truckload carriers, also asked for a boost in truck productivity by allowing pup trailers to grow to 33 feet from 28. That 17.9% gain would help carriers haul more pallets and parcels in the same number of trucks — a handsome bargain.

On the truckload side, the Coalition for Transportation Productivity wants a size-and-weight change in a highway bill, whenever there is one.

As for the Obama administration’s highway plan, it did come out with Grow America II at the end of March. We like the six-year approach with in-creased spending, although some of the line items seem poorly considered and using a tax holiday as a funding source is at odds with reality.

But the Republican-led Congress said Grow America is a nonstarter and is talking now about its plans, at least a little bit: House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leader Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) wants a temporary patch that will lead to a real long-term plan. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of Environment and Public Works, wants a multiyear plan because all of the patches waste money.

We appreciate that Inhofe is paying attention to that important point, but the current patch expires at the end of May, and we would be dumbfounded if Congress and the president agreed on such a complicated plan in just a month and a half.

Inhofe and his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, seem able to say the right things, but there remains a wide divide in action between the House and Senate. How to pay for a bipartisan vision of transportation is the holy grail that no one wants to search for if obviously needed, but unpopular, tax increases are involved.

So it looks like we’re headed for another temporary funding patch. That would not be bad if it leads soon to a genuine, well-considered plan. But if it just leads to more and more and more patches, then the economic growth we all crave will start to pay the price for kicking the can down the road.