CAWP Legislative News 10-10
LaHood Reiterates Disapproval of Gas Tax In Front of House Transportation Committee
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood used an appearance before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee July 27 to reiterate the Obama administration’s opposition to a gas tax increase and advocated for increased tolling along highways and bridges to pay for surface transportation reauthorization legislation.
“We have ten percent unemployment and people can hardly afford to pay for a gallon of gasoline,” LaHood said, insisting that a combination of financing methods like the President’s proposed infrastructure fund, public-private partnerships, and more tolling could be sufficient to pay for a $500 billion reauthorization bill without raising taxes.
The reauthorization bill, spearheaded by Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.), has been stalled in Congress since last year as lawmakers struggle to find the money to pay for it.
Industry Supports a Gas Tax. Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wis.), stepping in for Oberstar as chair during the second round of testimonies, received four affirmative answers when he asked the witnesses whether they would support a higher gas tax.
Kevin Gannon, the vice president of Northeast Asphalt, Inc. and a member of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association’s board of directors, said he is “absolutely in favor” of user fees for roads and highways in the form of a gas tax.
“For more than 50 years, the federal aid highway and transit programs have been a model of responsible, stable and dependable financing – user funded and deficit neutral,” Gannon said in his testimony. “That dependability, which is so critical to planning and executing multi-year construction projects, is now threatened by a lack of will to enhance the revenue stream to the Highway Trust Fund to reflect today’s realities.”
James Duit, president of the Duit Construction Company testifying on behalf of the American Concrete Pavement Association, referred to the gas tax as an immediate solution, but added longer-term solutions like P3s would be more effective and longer-lasting.
“The gas tax has…really been the backbone to all of our infrastructure and our interstates in the past,” he said. “I am not necessarily for the gas tax, but I think that that is a solution – an immediate solution.”
Democratic Split. There is even disagreement within the Democratic Party as to whether a gas tax should be imposed. LaHood ensured the committee that the Obama administration is staunchly against such a tax, saying that it would be inappropriate when the national unemployment rate is so high.
But Oberstar disagreed, stating that a budget-neutral gas tax was something that even conservatives like former presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush had passed during their tenures.
Thinking Outside the Box. Originally invited to testify in defense of the Department of Transportation’s use of funds provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Pub. L. No. 111-5), LaHood used the opportunity to point out the success some states have had with alternative financing methods, telling the committee that high occupancy toll lanes are one example of how to raise necessary funds.
“We could raise a lot of money using tolling, and people see the value of [HOT Lanes],” LaHood said. “I think we need to think outside the box about where we find the resources.”
Source: BNA Construction Labor Report, July 29, 2010