Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is scheduled to unveil a new highway bill proposal on Monday as lawmakers are scrambling to beat a May 31 deadline for the expiration of the federal government’s current infrastructure spending.
Foxx has been trying to convince lawmakers to pass a long-term extension of the transportation funding measure, but lawmakers have been struggling to come up with a way to pay for a new round of infrastructure spending.
Transportation Department officials said Monday that Foxx would unveil a new version of the Obama administration’s Grow America Act at an event hosted in Washington by Politico.
{mosads}The Obama administration suggested earlier this year that lawmakers should approve a four-year, $478 billion transportation bill that would mostly be paid for with revenue gained from taxing corporate oversees profits.
Lawmakers have largely ignored the proposal, although Republicans have said they would be open to the tax reform recommendations if participation from companies is voluntary instead mandatory.
The new proposal from Foxx comes as state transportation officials have said they are already beginning to prepare for a construction shutdown if Congress is unable to reach an agreement on extending the federal government’s transportation funding.
The traditional source of transportation funding has been the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax that was established in the 1930s. The tax has not been increased since 1993, and improvements in car fuel efficiency have greatly sapped its purchasing power in recent years.
The federal government typically spends about $50 billion per year on transportation projects, but the gas tax only brings in $34 billion annually at its current rate.
Lawmakers have turned to other areas of the federal budget in recent years to close the $16-billion-per-year gap.
Transportation advocates have pushed for an increase in the gas tax to solve the infrastructure funding problem, but lawmakers have been reluctant to ask drivers to pay more at the pump to help finance road projects.
Conservative groups have said they would consider a gas tax hike a tax increase, which has caused most Republicans to oppose the proposal.
The Department of Transportation has said that it will have to stop making payments to state governments for construction projects if Congress allows its Highway Trust Fund to run out of money.
Transportation advocates have said that a shutdown would cost the nation thousands of jobs because May is typically the beginning of the busy summer construction period.
Foxx is scheduled to speak Monday at 12 p.m.