Highways On The Hill
House is looking for ways to raise money to ease congestion.
Oliver B.Patton
Washington Editor
The key transportation committee in the House has big plans for the U.S. highway system, and is looking for money to pay the bill. Naturally, it will expect trucking to ante up.
Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, argues convincingly that the U.S. faces a congestion crisis that threatens to strangle mobility. Congestion costs more than $67 billion a year - $1,160 per commuter - in wasted time and fuel, Young said. On top of that, he said, substandard road conditions and roadside hazards cause more than 1,000 deaths per month in traffic accidents.
Hundreds of billions are needed to fix the problem, he said. He and the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, are talking about $375 billion - almost a 74% increase over the current law, the $216 billion Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century enacted in 1998. TEA 21 expires in September, and Young and other congressional leaders are working hard on early drafts of a new law.
Young is floating a number of ideas to raise money for his ambitious agenda. One of them in particular sets off alarms in a trucking community that was battered this winter by historic highs in fuel prices. Young is suggesting that fuel taxes be indexed to inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index - in other words, when the CPI goes up, so does the federal tariff you pay when you fill up your tank.
A key provision of this idea is to make the inflation linkage retroactive to the CPI index of 1993, when fuel taxes were last increased. The effect of this would be a hefty boost in fuel taxes the moment the law goes into effect - about 5 cents per gallon for gasoline and 7 cents per gallon for diesel. The current gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, and diesel is 24.3 cents.
Based on past experience, the inflation index would drive the fuel tax up by about a half-cent per year, according to a committee staff member.
Young said polling shows that the public will accept a gas tax increase if it is spent on highways and transit, but this idea has a long way to go before it becomes reality. Even if it passes muster in the House, it will face opposition in the Senate. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, is not interested in a retroactive index, according to committee staffer Ruth Van Mark.
Moreover, it will have to overcome the concerted opposition of trucking interests such as American Trucking Assns. "Regardless of how (a fuel tax) is clothed, we are against it," said spokesman Mike Russell.
ATA supports improvements to the highway system but believes that existing funds can be better spent. For example, the association says in its white paper on reauthorization that more money needs to be spent on parking spaces for truck drivers, and state and local agencies need to pay attention to freight traffic when they allocate funds for highway projects.
Young's indexing plan is not the only tax increase on the table. The American Road & Transportation Builders Assn. (ARTBA) is promoting the idea of small, regular increases in the fuel tax - two cents or less per year. "Two Cents Makes Sense," as the program is called, would double federal investments in highways and transit over the next six years, ARTBA Pete Ruane told Congress.
House transportation leaders also are studying other ways to raise highway funds. They are suggesting that more money be taken out of the $18 billion balance in the Highway Trust Fund, and that the interest on that balance be put back into the fund - it is now paid into the general treasury. Another possibility is to close the loophole that lets revenue from gasohol user fees be diverted from the fund, and reimburse the fund for revenue lost due to a subsidy for gasohol users. And there's the perennial call for a crackdown on fuel tax evasion.
According to Young, these measures will generate an additional $70 to 75 billion over the life of the reauthorization bill.
Young also has suggested that the government levy a fee of up to $200 on each cargo container that enters the country, in order to raise money to improve port congestion.
It is not a foregone conclusion that Congress will wrap up this legislation by October. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee plans to mark up its bill by Memorial Day, but Ruth Van Mark said it is possible that things will get bogged down. The bill is enormous and complex, and the war in Iraq makes congressional affairs less predictable than usual. It is not a good sign that Congress was almost five months late in passing appropriations legislation for this fiscal year. On the other hand, Young is arguing that his $375 billion will create 1.3 million new jobs, which may appeal to legislators who are looking for ways to pump up the economy.
Meanwhile, Young told House Budget Committee members that he wants $50 billion for highways and transit next fiscal year - that's almost 58% more than the $31.6 billion Congress approved for this fiscal year.
Washington Report continued...
