Bridge Disaster Could Mean Gas-Tax Hike
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press
August 8, 2007
Page 2 of 2
When the next highway bill comes up in 2009, Congress won't settle for a ''bargain basement'' measure, Oberstar said.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the top Republican on the committee, called for a national strategic transportation plan to fix a system where ''we have congestion, where we have bridges falling into our rivers.'' He cited an American Council of Civil Engineering estimate that this would cost $1.7 trillion.
The administration in turn has demanded that Congress show more discipline, citing thousands of special projects, or earmarks, in highway bills that don't reflect the real priorities. The best known among them was one that Young supported: $223 million for the ''Bridge to Nowhere'' in Alaska. That provision eventually faltered, but about $24 billion -- a little less than 8 percent of the total -- in the last highway bill was still devoted to projects singled out by lawmakers for funding.
State transportation officials also complain about the federal practice of annually denying spending for uncontracted projects, leaving states short of money promised in transportation bills. This helped build up the highway trust fund, said Jack Basso of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, but the reality is that ''that money is never going to get used.''
Since 2002, Congress has been using these unobligated funds for ''rescissions,'' a budget device used to offset spending and make the budget deficit look smaller. Such highway-related rescissions have grown from $374 million in fiscal 2002 to $4.3 billion this fiscal year.
Within a day of the Minneapolis bridge disaster, the Senate moved to create a national commission to look into what must be done to improve roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other public works. Advocates said it basically boils down to two issues -- finding the money and the political will.
Two years from now, when Congress has to write a new six-year plan, the highway trust fund -- which had a balance of almost $23 billion in 2000 -- is expected to go into the red.
While revenues from the fuel tax are eroding in value, construction costs are soaring. In the past three years the costs of basic materials such as asphalt, steel and diesel fuel have risen 47 percent because of construction booms in China and other countries, said Jeff Shoaf, senior executive director of Associated General Contractors of America.
''We're in so deep a hole that we've got to look at every option,'' he said.
Among those options, all with their detractors, are building more toll roads, encouraging more private-public road projects, sanctioning more state and local construction bonds and taxing drivers according to miles driven rather than fuel purchased.
Congress also may finally be ready to consider a boost in the federal gasoline tax. Frank Moretti of TRIP, a national transportation research group, said continuing to oppose higher gasoline taxes could become politically untenable.
The bridge collapse ''is going to create a fundamental shift,'' Moretti said. The public would rather pay more taxes ''than have to face the consequences of a crumbling infrastructure.''
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