For bridges, roads, will you pay at the pump?
WASHINGTON -- Would you pay an extra 66 cents a day -- on top of soaring gas prices -- if it meant less rush-hour traffic, better public transit and fewer people dying on the highways?
A divided special commission is presenting a choice something like that to motorists frustrated with traffic congestion, decaying bridges and endless road repairs. Gas prices currently average more than $3 a gallon.
The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission is urging federal gasoline taxes be increased by up to 40 cents a gallon over five years to fix the nation's aging infrastructure. The cost, the commission estimates, would be 41 to 66 cents a day -- less than the price of a candy bar, one commissioner said -- for the average motorist.
But the gas tax hasn't been increased in about 15 years, and several congressional Republicans were quick to make clear Tuesday they expect no big changes.
"A dramatic increase in the gas tax does not stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing Congress," said Rep. John Mica of Florida, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which holds a hearing on the report Thursday.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, was equally blunt. "Raising the gas tax would put us in the fast lane to a recession," he said.
The two-year study by the 12-member commission is the first to propose broad changes after a devastating bridge collapse in Minneapolis last August shone a spotlight on the deteriorating state of the nation's infrastructure.
The congressionally created commission warned that "applying patches" to the national system is no longer acceptable. It said the U.S. risks tens of thousands of highway casualties each year and millions of dollars lost in economic growth.
"The crisis is now," the report said.
The 68-page compilation of findings and recommendations, which were supported by nine of the commissioners, is expected to re-ignite political debate over raising gasoline taxes. Recent efforts by Congress to increase it have faltered, in part due to objections by the Bush administration.
In a 10-page dissent to the report, the commission's chairwoman, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, and two other members sharply criticized the proposal for higher gasoline taxes. She and the two commissioners are calling instead for sole reliance on tolls and private investment, which Peters said would avoid sending millions of dollars of new tax revenue to Washington that would end up as congressional pork.
A spokesman for Peters said the three commissioners opted not to appear at the news conference to avoid a public display of internal division.
Under the proposal, the current tax of 18.4 cents per gallon would be increased by 5 cents to 8 cents annually for five years and then indexed to inflation afterward to help fix the infrastructure, expand public transit and highways as well as broaden railway and rural access. The increase is designed to take effect in 2009, after President Bush leaves office.
Other sources of revenue could come from tolls, peak-hour "congestion pricing" on highways, freight fees and ticket taxes for passenger rail improvements, the report said.
"A failure to act will be catastrophic to this nation," said Jack Schenendorf, the commission's vice chairman.
"We saw what happened with Katrina," he said, referring to the 2005 hurricane that overwhelmed aging levees. "We don't want to see the transportation system to see the same fate of the New Orleans levees."
Commissioner Paul Weyrich, a Republican appointee to the commission and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, said he is philosophically opposed to higher taxes but decided to support it this time in light of the growing transportation problems.
The recommendations, if implemented, are expected to cost $225 billion each year for the next 50 years.
The commission, established by Congress in 2005, also called for the country to rebuild and expand its rail network to meet a growing demand for alternatives to congested highways and to promote partnerships between the public and private sectors at U.S. ports. Its report comes as state governments and several business groups called on Washington to raise gas taxes to pay for substantial transportation improvements. The Minneapolis bridge collapse, which killed 13 people and injured about 100, also drew new calls for additional spending.
"The time is now to work together to find a solution to this complex problem," said John Engler, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, which is open to a tax increase but isn't formally supporting it. "The U.S. will soon be facing a competitive disadvantage if we don't develop a national plan to improve the quality of our infrastructure system."