Another Band-Aid likely as Congress dithers on highway funding amid GOP turmoil

The Republican party’s internecine warfare over who will be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives has thrown a huge roadblock into hopes of getting financing for a sorely needed long-term multi-year highway bill.
 
With funding for the Highway Trust Fund set to expire Oct. 29, it seems almost a certainty that Congress would once again punt on the issue by passing a familiar continuing resolution to keep financing for highways at current levels, probably through the New Year.
 
That would be the 35th time since 2009 that Congress has kicked that can down the road – instead of doing the hard work required to find a suitable funding mechanism to pay for what the American Society of Civil Engineers says is $106 billion a year for 10 years to suitably upgrade our nation’s highways and bridges.
 
Everyone from the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the independent Democratic socialist candidate for president, has endorsed the idea of spending $1 trillion over the next decade to upgrade U.S. infrastructure. Yet Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, continues to ignore the issue.
 
Once Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., once the chosen pick to succeed Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, dropped out of the race to become House Speaker, the entire highway bill hit a huge red light.  Rep. McCarthy had said passing a highway bill was among his top priorities.
 
“The fundamental change I’m going to make as Speaker, we’re going to get the highway bill done,” McCarthy said, days before dropping out of the Speaker race.
 
The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee was expected to pass some form reauthorization measure later this month ahead of an Oct. 29 deadline for Highway Trust Fund programs to expire. The House T&I committee has scheduled their mark up of a comprehensive surface transportation bill on Oct. 22.
 
“We’d rather not engage in speculation on whether the House Speaker situation might affect important, near-term pieces of legislation,” American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves told LM.  “ATA is pleased, though, that the House T&I Committee has scheduled a markup on the policy portion of the highway reauthorization bill.  We view that as a positive sign.”
 
But long-term funding remains unclear. The federal fuel tax––18.4 cents on gasoline, 24.4 cents on diesel, unchanged since 1993––would be the fairest and most efficient way, transportation advocates say. But with the Republican Party loathe to raise any sort of tax or user fee, that avenue seems unlikely.
 
The Senate, in a rare show of bipartisanship with 65 votes in favor, passed in July a six-year bill. The hook is the Senate only devised a way to pay for three years of it. The Senate’s six-year bill is known as the DRIVE Act. But it included enough funding, $275 billion, to pay for three years of programs.
 
In a normal year, the House would pass a bill, and it would go to a conference committee to iron out the two bills’ differences. But with the House GOP in turmoil, this is anything but a normal year.
 
So expect another short-term funding extension, even in light of new reports and polling that shows Americans expect and need much more spending on our infrastructure needs. For instance: The American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave the U.S. a “D” grade on its surface transportation infrastructure.

The U.S. ranks 28th in the world in infrastructure spending compared with other developed countries.

It’s been 10 years since Congress passed a highway spending measure longer than two years. The last extension, passed days before the annual five-week summer recess in late July, was merely for three months. With 2016 a presidential election year, few in Washington expect much out of Congress in terms of tax increases.
 
That is despite an annual shortfall of about $16 billion a year in the Highway Trust Fund. The federal government spends about $50 billion annually on highway and bridge funding—about half what the latest research shows is needed to upgrade our infrastructure.

A report from the Economic Development Research Group said that unless America aggressively upgrades its surface transportation infrastructure, American would lose 877,000 jobs and would spend triple the amount of time in traffic.

That same group indicated exports would drop, costing the country $28 billion and GDP would decline by nearly $900 billion.

A new AAA poll showed 70 percent of U.S. residents think the federal government should invest more than it does now for roads, bridges and mass transit systems. “Motorists are dissatisfied that our national leaders repeatedly have failed to meet the basic needs of drivers across the country,” AAA President Marshall Doney said.
 
“Americans rely on our nation’s roads and bridges every day, yet Congressional inaction has led to longer commutes, more potholes and unsafe conditions,” Doney added.

Yet Congress has continued to dither. It’s been 10 years since Congress passed a highway spending measure longer than two years. The last extension, passed days before the annual five-week summer recess in late July, was merely for three months. With 2016 a presidential election year, few in Washington expect much out of Congress in terms of tax increases.
 
That is despite an annual shortfall of about $16 billion a year in the Highway Trust Fund. The federal government spends about $50 billion annually on highway and bridge funding—about half what the latest research shows is needed to upgrade our infrastructure.
 
“Your economy will move in the speed of your infrastructure,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently told a infrastructure meeting in his city. “We have a 20th century infrastructure.”
 
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is one of the favorites to take over the House speaker’s role. He recently held talks with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to craft an international tax reform that would produce a tax windfall of repatriated profits from overseas. The idea would be to use that revenue to pay for a long-term surface transportation bill.
 
But and other Democratic senators reportedly wanted a higher level of long-term infrastructure spending than the GOP-controlled House could accept. So Ryan’s office has told House T&I Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., to somehow craft a new transport bill without counting on that “repatriation” funding scheme.
 
Sen. Schumer recently told Roll Call that he was “not optimistic” about that prospect. “The alternative is a shorter-term highway bill such as the Senate has passed. Is it as good? No. It’s only three years. That’s not a way to run a highway system,” Schumer told the newspaper. “The increases are much too small given the needs of our infrastructure and given the needs for jobs in America, but it’s better than nothing.”