DALLAS -- Bills that would authorize President Obama's six-year, $487 billion highway and transit proposal, raise the federal gasoline tax, and set up regional clearing-houses for public-private partnership ventures are among the transportation funding legislative options awaiting lawmakers when they return to Washington next week.
Congress passed a two-month fix of the Highway Trust Fund just before breaking for the week-long Memorial Day recess that will keep federal reimbursements flowing to states for transportation projects through June. But that hasn't convinced some states to resume projects and a multiyear surface transportation bill must be passed before the extension ends June 30 or another in a long line of short-term extensions will be needed.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the ranking minority member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the 19 other Democrats on the panel introduced President Obama's Grow America Act as H.R. 2410 on the same day the House approved the two-month patch.
DeFazio said the transportation committee should schedule a joint hearing with the House Ways and Means Committee next week to begin the process of finding the revenues needed to increase the national investment in transportation infrastructure.
"We can't sit around and wait for the Ways and Means Committee to dictate how much money they will designate," he said. "We need to tell them how much investment America needs to fix our crumbling roads, bridges, and public transit systems."
DeFazio said the Grow America Act was introduced to spur discussions "with our Republican friends" about getting a multiyear bill passed before the extension expires.
"If Congress has two months to figure out a long-term solution, every day counts and we need to begin work today," he said.
The president's six-year proposal would fund a 45% increase in current highway and transit spending with $240 billion of fuel tax revenues and $238 billion from a mandatory 14% on corporate foreign earnings, DeFazio said.
"Although I don't support every provision of the bill, the legislation gets two critical issues right - the long-term length of the reauthorization and the level of investment," he said.
Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., said the regional centers authorized by her Regional Infrastructure Accelerator Act, H.R. 2485, would help attract private sector investments to public infrastructure projects.
Local and state governments would receive funding from the multi-state organizations for feasibility analyses and preliminary design work needed to get a project off the ground, she said. The centers could also match appropriate public infrastructure with interested private investors.
"Passage of another short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund made clear that our communities cannot rely on government alone to fund the nation's roads, bridges, and water facilities," Torres said.
The centers would be modeled after the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange, she said.
A vote on a six-year transportation bill is set for June 24 by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that would set annual spending levels, but the Senate Finance Committee must still find the needed revenues.
Current collections the federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel are $13 billion per year below funding levels. The Congressional Budget Office said an extension through the end of the year would require up to $11 billion of additional revenue, with a six-year bill needing $100 billion or more.
H.R. 680, filed earlier this year by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would boost infrastructure spending by adding 15 cents over three years to the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon as well as the diesel tax of 24.4 cents.
The fuel tax increases in the Update, Promote, and Develop America's Transportation Essentials (UPDATE) Act, would bring in an additional $210 billion for highways and transit over 10 years, Blumenauer said.
