Secretary Anthony Foxx, Rep. Bill Shuster: Gas Tax Increase Unlikely This Year
WASHINGTON — Two of the country’s top transportation leaders reaffirmed their opposition to raising fuel taxes to keep highway programs funded for several years, a setback for proponents of increasing the user fees, including trucking industry leaders.
“The sense I get is that the gas tax increase is just not a viable political strategy, period,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said during an event at the Newseum with Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) hosted by National Journal magazine March 19.
“We have to keep everybody focused on, really, those dollars need to go to freight corridors in this country that move the goods, move people,” added Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “I’m for what’s possible, not what’s impossible, and I just don’t think the gas tax is.”
Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have yet to reveal how they would keep highway programs funded after a May 31 funding authority deadline. That’s when a 2012 surface transportation law expires, and the federal Highway Trust Fund is projected to run out of money around that time.
Shuster indicated a reauthorizing measure is likely to be unveiled after the Easter congressional recess but did not explain how the measure would be funded. Shuster and other transportation policy writers have deferred such funding questions to the tax policy writers in the House and Senate.
Transportation executives who spoke after Foxx and Shuster at the National Journal event said they expect lawmakers to approve a short-term funding patch in May and then proceed with advancing a long-term highway bill by the end of the year.
For years, Congress has resisted increasing the tax on gas and diesel fuel despite pressure from major transportation groups. American Trucking Associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association are among the groups that support raising fuel taxes to shore up the trust fund.
This month, ARTBA proposed hiking the federal diesel and gasoline tax 15 cents a gallon and offset the cost for low- and middle-income families with tax rebates. There would be no rebates for truckers buying diesel under the plan. The tax on diesel is 24.4 cents a gallon. The gasoline is 18.4 cents a gallon.
The Highway Trust Fund collects revenues from the federal fuel taxes to help states finance large-scale transportation projects. User fees are no longer sufficient to cover the fund’s obligations, and since 2008, Congress has kept the fund operable by transferring nearly $55 billion from the general fund.
