DALLAS - Congress will pass a six-year transportation bill funded with revenue from taxing overseas corporate earnings before the current 90-day extension expires Oct. 29, House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday.
McCarthy is widely expected to replace House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, when Boehner leaves Congress on Oct. 30.
"We're going to make sure we get the highway bill done," McCarthy said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "So we're going to find a bill done next month that is a six-year highway bill."
McCarthy said revenue from revisions to the tax on overseas corporate earnings should be used to make up the $15 billion per year shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund between gasoline, diesel and other tax collections and expenditures for highway and transit projects.
He rejected any increase in the federal fuels tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel, saying he prefers changes in the corporate tax code so that corporations pay taxes on profits to the countries where they were generated.
"You're not going to see an increase in the gasoline tax, but you're going to see a change in the tax structure to territorial tax," he said.
"If we pass a highway bill with tax reform at the same time, that's policy," McCarthy said. "That puts a six year highway bill on to the floor, and starts moving and building roads that we need in American infrastructure."
Boehner did not mention the highway bill when he was interviewed Sept. 27 on NBC's "Meet The Press," but said he expects "a little more cooperation from some around town to try to get as much finished as possible" in his last month as speaker.
However, transportation experts said it will be almost impossible for Congress to adopt major revisions to the tax code and a fully funded, multiyear transportation bill before the 90-day fix expires.
There's only a 5% chance that a Congress will approve a bill by Oct. 29, said Jack Schenendorf, of counsel to Covington & Burling LLP, but a 65% chance that the House will pass a multiyear bill by then and then work out a compromise with the Senate in November or early December.
On the other hand, he said, there's a 30% chance that the House will not agree on a long-term bill before the current HTF fix expires.
"In either case, another extension will be needed by Oct. 29," Schenendorf said. "The length of the extension will depend on how much progress is made on the multiyear bill."
Changes in the House leadership will not spur action on the highway bill, Schenendorf said.
"It certainly would help move things along if Speaker Boehner makes the multiyear highway bill a priority for action before he leaves, but the real issue holding up the bill in the House is the financing," he said.
Passage of a multiyear transportation bill by the end of October is unlikely but the odds are better for a measure before the end of 2015, said Jeff Davis, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation.
"There's been a lot of talk about progress over the last 48 hours, but there's just not enough time for a six-year bill to get through Congress by Oct. 29," Davis said. "There's going to be another extension, that's for sure."
The Senate in late July passed the six-year DRIVE Act, which is fully funded for only the first three years with $47 billion of revenue offsets and $120 billion of gasoline and diesel tax collections, but House Republicans have criticized the measure for not being fully funded.
