Senate Republicans are searching for way to pay for an extension of federal transportation funding that is currently set to expire in six weeks.
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss the reauthorization of the surface transportation bill, which will expire on May 31 without congressional intervention.
The hearing will be the second about the transportation bill this week as the deadline for renewing the nation’s infrastructure funding looms large in Washington.
{mosads}The chairman of the panel, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), said earlier this week that the GOP-led Senate is looking for a funding source that will provide enough money to close a shortfall in federal transportation funding that is estimated to be about $15 billion per year.
“I believe that a long-term reauthorization bill is necessary to provide certainty and stability to cities and states across the country. More importantly, it is essential to Americans who rely on transportation for their livelihoods,” Shelby said during a hearing on Tuesday.
“However, the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund is the most significant hurdle we face in advancing a reauthorization bill,” he continued. “Today, the revenue coming into the Highway Trust Fund is $15 billion less than what is needed to sustain transportation spending at current authorization levels. This persistent revenue shortfall highlights the fact that our current transportation needs have outstripped the capacity of the trust fund.”
The typical source of transportation funding has been revenue that is collected from the 18.4-cents-per-gallon gas tax. The gas tax brings in about $34 billion per year, but the federal government typically spends approximately $50 billion on transportation projects.
Lawmakers have turned to other areas of the federal budget in recent years to close the shortfall, but Shelby said on Tuesday that the GOP-led upper chamber would only support a transportation bill that includes a fiscally responsible funding mechanism this time around.
“Any reauthorization proposal Congress considers must balance spending needs with long-term sustainability, flexibility, and innovation,” he said. “Federal policies should encourage private sector investment in transportation and transit infrastructure in order to better leverage federal investments and increase economic growth.”
Congress has approved only a series of temporary infrastructure funding patches since a 2005 transportation bill expired in 2009, including an $11 billion measure scheduled to expire on May 31.
Transportation advocates have argued that the temporary patches have weakened the nation’s infrastructure systems because the short-term fixes have made it harder for state and local governments to pay for badly needed large construction projects.
The Department of Transportation has said, meanwhile, that it will have to start cutting off payments to states in July if Congress does not pass a transportation funding fix because its Highway Trust Fund will run out of money. The fund, which is used to pay for most federal infrastructure projects, takes in revenue from the gas tax.
The gas tax has not been increased since 1993, and it has struggled to keep pace with rising construction costs as cars have become more fuel-efficient.
Lawmakers have introduced a series of bills recently to extend the expiring transportation funding measure, but they have not yet coalesced around a specific funding source. The idea of increasing the federal gas tax to help pay for construction projects has been discussed, but many lawmakers are reluctant to ask drivers to pay more at the pump.
Additional proposals from the White House and lawmakers like Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) rely on the idea of taxing overseas corporate revenue through a process known as “repatriation” to pay for a new round of road projects.
Lawmakers in the Senate are scheduled to hear testimony at the hearing on Thursday from representatives from the American Public Transportation Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Community Transportation Association of America, and the AFL-CIO Transport Workers Union of America union.