DALLAS – The nation's crumbling transportation infrastructure will continue its steepening decline until Congress provides more funding for highway and airport projects, infrastructure advocates told members of a Senate panel.
President Donald Trump's proposed $1 trillion, 10-year infrastructure plan was the impetus behind Wednesday's session on funding the revitalization effort by the Senate Appropriations Committee's transportation panel, said chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
"There is not a person in this room who would dispute that our transportation system is in disrepair and requires additional investments," Collins said. "The question is: how do we pay for this much-needed investment?"
The solutions presented to the lawmakers by advocates included additional private activity bonds and more low-interest federal loans, but they agreed that Congress needs to refill the Highway Trust Fund by raising the federal gasoline tax for the first time in more than 20 years.
An increase in the gasoline tax is the simplest and most efficient avenue to more infrastructure spending, said Ed Mortimer, executive director for transportation infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"Why the reluctance to raise the federal gasoline tax or index it to inflation?" Mortimer said. "It comes down to the political courage of the Congress."
Raising the gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon and the diesel tax of 24.4 cents by 1 cent per month for a year and then indexing the tax to inflation would support current services funding levels for the foreseeable future, Mortimer said.
Any new infrastructure legislation must ensure the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, Mortimer he said.
"The gas tax, if adjusted in amount and indexed, is ideal and most transparent as a revenue source," he said. "The collection system itself is highly efficient."
The cap on outstanding transportation-specific PABs should be raised to $25 billion from the current limit of $15 billion, Mortimer said, which would help leverage an additional $40 billion of investments.
The public private partnerships favored in the Trump proposal are important and would bring needed investments to infrastructure but they are not a panacea, Mortimer said.
"Although using P3's and other private financing instruments can free up pay-as-you go funding sources for projects that are not amenable to private investment, they are no replacement for fixing the revenue problem facing the HTF," he said.
President Trump's proposal represents a unique chance to rebuild the national transportation infrastructure, he said.
"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize America's infrastructure," Mortimer said. "The bottom line is that the time to make important infrastructure investments is now. Delaying action only makes the decisions more difficult and projects costlier."
Failure to bolster the fuel taxes dedicated to the HTF before the current federal funding law expires at the end of fiscal 2020 with additional revenues would be a disaster for state highway programs, said Jim Tymon, chief operating officer at the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.
Federal highway funding would fall by 40% in fiscal 2021 without additional revenues for the HTF, to $27.7 billion from $46.2 billion in fiscal 2020, he said.
"Simply put, this is a devastating scenario that we must do all we can to avoid," Tymon said.
Lifting the $4.50 cap on the federal passenger facility charge levied by airports to fund infrastructure projects would allow them to issue more debt for upgrades and pay off their existing debt quicker, said Todd Hauptli, president of the American Association of Airport Executives.
"At a time when there is enormous pressure to reduce federal spending, allowing airports to finance a greater share of their projects with local revenue free from federal interference is by far the easiest way to improve our nation's airport infrastructure," he told the panel.
