House, Senate divided over transportation funding legislation

Debate continued in the Senate Thursday on a multi-year surface transportation bill that would fund investment in highway, bridge and transit infrastructure, but House lawmakers disagree on how to pay for the measure.    Debate continued in the Senate Thursday on a multi-year surface transportation bill that would fund investment in highway, bridge and transit infrastructure, but it’s path to enactment is unclear. Even if it passes, there appears to be strong opposition in the House to some of the mechanisms used to pay for the infrastructure and safety programs managed by the Department of Transportation.
   The problem, in the eyes of lawmakers who want to increase the gas tax or find another sustainable source of revenue to supplement the faltering Highway Trust Fund into the future, is that the long-term DRIVE Act proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is six-years in length, but only identifies funding for three years.
   The gap between Highway Trust Fund receipts and federal-aid obligations to states for roadwork and transit would be made up through $47 billion in offsets such as reducing interest rates paid by the Federal Reserve to large banks, cutting off Social Security to wanted felons, selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and re-directing Transportation Security Administration and Customs fees.
   According to The Hill newspaper, a Washington-based publication focused on Congress, House Democrats don’t want to rob other programs to pay for highway infrastructure. One complaint is that the Senate bill would generate almost $2 billion for roads by extending guarantees on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages beyond the 2021 expiration date, which would continue to add costs for home buyers.
   Meanwhile, the House has passed a five-month extension of existing programs to keep them going beyond the July 31 deadline for funding to cease. House leaders say a short-term extension is the best way to maintain the status quo until a long-term funding plan can be worked out. The Hill says House Democrats and Republicans, in a rare show of unity, oppose the Senate approach and are pushing to get the Senate to take up the House version and use the extra time to carry on the funding debate.
   The Highway Trust Fund is losing ground to inflation and reduced gas tax receipts because of more fuel-efficient cars on the roads, leading to a $16 billion annual shortfall in receipts compared to the obligations for the federal share of highway improvements made by states.
   Many transportation advocates and lawmakers say the best approach would be to raise the gas tax and make highway users contribute to the system’s upkeep, but others on Capitol Hill are opposed to raising taxes of any kind for ideological reasons or feel a tax increase would burden lower-income Americans.
   State and federal transportation officials say short-term extensions make it difficult to do long-term project planning and for states to make project commitments without certainty that federal dollars will be forthcoming to help pay for their investments. There have been 12 short-term extensions of the highway bill since SAFETEA-LU expired in 2009, not including the two-year MAP-21 bill that expired last year, according to Jeff Davis, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation.