U.S. House transport committee head calls for bridge repair fund

U.S. House transport committee head calls for bridge repair fund    U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar called Wednesday for the creation of a federal bridge maintenance fund to repair aging and under maintained bridges in the National Highway System.
   Coming just a week after an Interstate highway bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed in Minneapolis, claiming at least five lives, the Minnesota Democrat called for a national 5 cent-per-gallon gasoline tax to fund the proposed bridge fund, and detailed a plan to assure that money collected would be used for solely for bridge repair and maintenance.
   Oberstar announced the plan Wednesday in Minneapolis after visiting the site of the bridge tragedy. He cited U.S. Department of Transportation documents listing 73,784 bridges in the nation rated 'structurally deficient,' and said a major reason why these bridges are not repaired, rehabilitated, or replaced can be attributed to a 'tombstone mentality' in the federal government and in the states.
   'We react to tragedy, when lives are lost, but we fail to take preemptive action that could prevent these tragic events,' he said.
   The committee's minority leader, Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla., criticized Oberstar's plan as a 'knee-jerk reaction' and a 'Band-aid' approach to the problem. He said the current role of the federal government in highway funding needs to be redefined and called for public-private funding of bridges as a solution.
   Oberstar's plan seeks to address nearly 6,200 bridges in the National Highway System that require repair, rehabilitation or replacement. The NHS comprises the Eisenhower Interstate System, the Strategic Highway Military Network, and additional major highways across the country. The NHS covers only 4.1 percent of total road mileage in the country, but it carries 45 percent of its traffic, in terms of vehicle miles traveled.    NHS bridges carry more than 70 percent of the nation's bridge traffic. DOT lists 6,175 NHS bridges as structurally deficient; almost half of them (2,830) are on Interstate highways.
   The plan Oberstar put forward would increase inspections requirements, provide dedicated funding, distribute funds based on public safety and need, and establishes a trust fund, modeled after the Highway Trust Fund, to provide a dedicated source of revenue. Under Oberstar's proposal, revenues deposited in this trust fund would be available for no other purpose and would not be subject to Congressional or administration earmarking to other projects.
   Currently, a 18.3 cents-per-gallon federal excise tax on gasoline sales is collected to pay for NHS road and bridge maintenance, though the money is not locked in the way Oberstar's nickel increase is proposed.
   Oberstar said his committee would take up the plan as the first order of business when Congress returns in September. He said he would convene a hearing of the full committee to look at the problem of structurally deficient bridges on Sept. 5, and will immediately begin work to move his initiative through Congress.
   'We cannot wait for another tragedy,' Oberstar said. 'We must act, and act quickly.'