House Transport Panel Chairman Mica Sees Smaller Highway Spending Bill

This story appears in the Jan. 17 print edition of Transport Topics.

The new chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is likely to introduce a new, smaller surface transportation bill than what had been outlined in the last Congress, a spokesman told Transport Topics.

“We will write a new bill that will look different from the previous version,” Justin Harclerode, spokesman for Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the transportation committee, told TT.

That legislation probably will be limited in size to what the current fuel taxes bring in, Harclerode added.

“We have to look at what the Highway Trust Fund generates,” he said. “We’ll look at what is coming in and look to reinvest all of that back into the system.”

Harclerode said there probably would be hearings in Washington and other parts of the nation as the process moves forward.

The previous chairman of the committee, James Oberstar, a Democrat from Minnesota, had floated a $450 billion, six-year bill, but failed to win support during the prior congressional session.

Several transportation advocates said they’ve been told there will be no increase in the federal fuel tax, which will trim the amount of money spent on roads and bridges by billions of dollars annually.

“We’ve been told in no uncertain terms there will not be a fuel tax increase,” said Mary Phillips, senior vice president of legislative affairs for American Trucking Associations.

Brian Deery, senior director of the Associated General Contractors highway and transportation division, said holding to just what the current 18.4-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline and 24.4-cent-a-gallon diesel tax “is going to limit the size of the program.”

“The current revenue to the Highway Trust Fund would support about a 20% smaller program than the program is currently being funded at,” Deery said.

Phillips estimated that the highway program could “be trimmed by about $7 billion a year.”

Deery said that besides the total funding, the length of the legislation also will be debated. Prior bills have been for six years, but this new one could be as short as two years, he said.

Phillips said a “back-to-basics” highway program would be a good outcome for trucking.

That could “restore the program’s credibility and give us a better chance, down the road, to increase the taxes,” she said.

Harclerode said that in order to “supplement” the current trust fund, Mica is open to looking at “some alternative forms of financing,” including tolling and private investment.

Phillips said trucking was a bit leery of Mica’s support for tolling, but hoped he would stick to previous statements about not supporting tolls on existing infrastructure.

Deery said that while there may be renewed interest on Capitol Hill for public-private partnerships, interest from the private sector has waned.

“There was a huge appetite in the private sector a number of years ago, but there’s been a number of setbacks to that whole privatization initiative,” he said.

Deery said the setbacks have included the collapse of the Trans-Texas Corridor and the failed attempt to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike, as well as some “of the [negative] feedback from Indiana,” after the long-term lease of its toll road.