Transportation Funding Hits Gridlock

Struggle for Resources Drives Lawmaker Impasse on Popular Initiative

 

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A02

 

 

Nearly everybody in Congress wants roads and mass transit systems. Lawmakers just can't figure out how to pay for them.

The impasse over the massive reauthorization of a six-year transportation bill -- congressional leaders decided last week to extend the program for

five months, rather than tackle the bill now -- underscores the financial pressures lawmakers are experiencing in an era of ballooning deficits. Faced with costly international commitments and a decline in tax revenue, Congress is delaying action on popular domestic initiatives that proponents consider critical to future economic development.

The transportation bill ranks as a perennial favorite of lawmakers because it generates jobs while demonstrating politicians' ability to deliver back

home. House members blitzed the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with requests this year, asking for a total of 5,300 projects costing more than $500 billion. Both chambers set aside more than $300 billion to pay for the measure.

It also represents one of the basic responsibilities of Congress: maintaining the roads that connect the country and the public transit

systems that shuttle millions to work each day.

The strain on these resources continues to grow -- trucks alone traveled 206 billion miles in 2000, according to the Transportation Department -- but lawmakers have yet to figure out how to provide the repair and expansion projects communities are seeking.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on transportation, waxes lyrical when it comes to roadways.

"It's the lifeblood of economic growth," Bond said. "Wherever you have highways, you have commerce."

But lawmakers face a quandary. The National Highway Trust Fund, which is funded through an 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, generated about $98 billion during the past three years.

But the Transportation Department estimates that meeting the nation's transit needs during the next six years will cost $375 billion.

"We're going to have to figure out a way of financing it," said Rep. Thomas E. Petri (R-Wis.), who chairs the transportation subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines. "As a society, we're going to have to pay for it one way or another."

Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and his Democratic counterpart, James L. Oberstar (Minn.), have proposed boosting the gasoline tax to pay for the new spending, adding 5.4 cents in the first year and boosting it to 8.4 cents by 2009.

But House GOP leaders reject the idea of levying higher taxes. "At a time when we are trying to drive an economic recovery, the idea of imposing a new gas tax is something that has trouble gaining popularity on the Hill," said Chief Deputy Whip Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.).

The White House also opposes that approach, saying lawmakers should satisfy themselves with spending $247 billion over six years. To do otherwise, one administration official said, is "a huge budget problem. Obviously, we don't want that."

Congressional leaders, for their part, want the problem simply to go away. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said of the transportation bill: "It's not even an issue right now."

But several lawmakers, as well as outside supporters of the bill, say it is a mistake to postpone investments in the nation's crumbling infrastructure. They say that U.S. drivers waste an average of 62 hours annually in traffic and that more than 1,000 motorists die each year in crashes because of substandard road conditions.

Several Republicans also consider the legislation a more effective way to revive the economy than tax cuts. One study commissioned by a transportation industry group said Young's bill would translate into 1.3 million jobs. "The transportation bill is a jobs bill," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.).

A powerful coalition of manufacturing, engineering, construction and other transportation-related companies is continuing to pressure Congress to pass a more comprehensive bill. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association, for example, has been running radio and print ads touting the advantages of the gasoline tax to fund highway and other transit improvements. Representatives from at least 1,000 companies flocked to Capitol Hill last week, meeting with every member of the House and Senate, said the group's president, Pete Ruane.

"We're going to be relentless in our pursuit of this," said Ruane, who plans grass-roots events in members' districts as well as a "fly-in" featuring key executives next year. "Congress will rue the day they didn't deal with this."

Young remains cautiously optimistic, saying he won't "back off" his plans to spend $375 billion but is not sure how he can reconcile his plans with the leadership's opposition to a gas tax increase. "This is not going to be an easy solution," he said.

 

And as Ruane observed, the temporary extension of spending does not answer the question of how Congress plans to address the nation's pressing transportation needs.

 

"They're kicking the can down the street," he said. "It's a question of political will, that's what it boils down to.