Road Bill May Be Completed by End of Year

This story appears in the March 8 print edition of Transport Topics.

Transportation leaders said last week they hoped to complete a long-term surface transportation reauthorization before the end of the year, although paying for the legislation’s increased infrastructure spending remains a major obstacle.

“There may have been some progress on that last week,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s highways subcommittee, said March 2.

DeFazio, who spoke to state officials at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said he and Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), committee chairman, have been “beating up on the Senate and the administration since their rather abrupt and surprise announcement last spring that they didn’t want to go forward on a long-term bill.”

In June, just before Oberstar introduced a transportation reauthorization measure, the Obama administration, backed by the Senate, called for an 18-month delay in new highway legislation. The existing law expired in September, but has been extended several times since.

In recent days, there’s “been some shift in the administration’s position,” perhaps attributable to the success of the stimulus, DeFazio said.

DeFazio said the states had all met their obligation to spend the highway funds the stimulus provided, and the transportation portion of the program had created or saved hundreds of thousands of jobs.

DeFazio said promises made to Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) to secure his vote on a package of tax cuts and a longer term extension of the highway bill, as well as electoral politics, are working to make Senate approval of a long-term authorization bill possible this year.

“The ice is kind of breaking over there,” DeFazio said.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said during a March 3 hearing that transportation spending was “a proven jobs creator.”

Boxer said she was “encouraged” that the House was taking up the Senate’s version of a jobs bill that includes an extension of the highway program through the end of 2010 so Congress “can fully concentrate on the reauthorization.”

On March 4, the House approved an amended version of the Senate jobs bill, sending it back to the Senate for further debate.

Later in the March 3 hearing, Boxer assured Voinovich and Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), both of whom plan to retire after this year, that, “Our intention is to . . . sit down and write the bill while you are still here.”

Also on March 3, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told AASHTO members he had met with President Obama that week, and, “The president wants a comprehensive, robust transportation bill . . . and we need to find a bipartisan way to get the money.”

However, LaHood said that while the proposal put forward by Oberstar and DeFazio was “a good bill,” funding it was a problem, and the administration is opposed to raising the fuel tax.

“The only problem is it costs about $450 billion . . . and that kind of money doesn’t currently exist,” LaHood said.

In addition, LaHood said Obama “has said he doesn’t want to raise the gas tax” in order to increase revenues.

AASHTO, as well as other transportation groups including American Trucking Associations and two congressionally mandated commissions, all have pushed for an increase in the fuel tax

to fund transport construction, but LaHood brushed off those recommendations.

“It’s easy for people who are not elected to talk about raising the gas tax because people who are not elected don’t have to face the voters,” LaHood said.

DeFazio said that with a fuel tax increase off the table, he’s discussed indexing the current 18.4-cent gas and 24.4-cent diesel taxes to the cost of inflation.

“I don’t consider that a tax increase,” DeFazio said, adding that the idea had been well-received by some Republicans he’s spoken with.

DeFazio said he’s also looked at taxing by-the-barrel oil purchases and financial transactions as a way to generate the needed revenue.

LaHood said private financing was “something we’re going to look at,” and made special note of the Build America Bonds program as a way to increase transportation funding.

However, Pete Rahn, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation, told Boxer’s committee that states already had done a lot of borrowing to pay for infrastructure over the past few years.

“We’ve now tapped out the credit card,” Rahn said. “We need income to make those payments.”

LaHood said the U.S. DOT currently was “putting together the framework of a bill” he said probably would be completed within the next 90 days.

That framework, LaHood said, would reflect the administration’s views on transportation policy but may not offer funding solutions.