Key House Democrats Urge Another 5-Cent Gas Tax : Transit: Lawmakers want more revenue for a proposal 45% costlier than an Administration plan. Such an increase is certain to draw GOP opposition.

Six months after Congress tacked a nickel onto the federal gasoline tax, key House Democrats are pushing for another 5-cent increase to help pay for a massive five-year, $153-billion construction program for highways, bridges and mass transit systems.

The transportation program proposed by leaders of the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation would cost 45% more than the $105-billion highway and mass transit program unveiled by the Bush Administration in February.

The President’s transportation package would leave the federal gas tax at its current level of 14 cents a gallon until 1995, when it is scheduled to drop back to 9 cents.

Even proponents acknowledge that pushing another 5-cent tax hike through Congress would be difficult, perhaps impossible. Republicans still smarting over Bush’s decision last fall to abandon his no-new-taxes pledge are certain to oppose the move and it is likely to make many Democrats queasy. The Administration also is opposed, one official said Wednesday.

However, House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) have lent their support to the proposed tax hike. And Rep. Robert A. Roe (D-N.J.), chairman of the powerful Public Works panel, is making a strong pitch to construction unions and transportation trade groups, portraying the proposal as a much-needed jobs program and as a transportation plan.

“Will we invest a nickel in America?” Roe asked in a speech to union members earlier this week. “Each billion dollars that we expend for the purposes of rebuilding this country will create somewhere between 35,000 and 50,000 jobs.”

Foley cited energy conservation as a reason to support the panel’s gas tax proposal. “I think it is ridiculous that we don’t have a higher gasoline tax in this country,” the Speaker told reporters. “Americans are addicted to very low energy costs.”

Rostenkowski said that the proposal might be the only tax legislation considered by Congress this year. “There’s a side benefit to a gasoline tax increase,” Rostenkowski said at a tax law conference Wednesday. “It discourages consumption and encourages more efficient cars.”

If Congress adopts such a proposal, Rostenkowski said, he will insist that its revenues be split 50-50 between highways and deficit reduction. “If they need 5 cents for roads, they should raise the gas tax by 10 cents,” he said.

State officials are wary of the House plan. “The last time the federal government raised the (gasoline) tax, they took half of it for the general fund,” said Carl B. Lewis, an assistant director of California Department of Transportation. “There is really no guarantee in my view that they wouldn’t do the same thing again.”

California voters already have approved a significant increase in the state gasoline tax, currently 15 cents a gallon and scheduled to rise to 18 cents by January, 1994. Approval of another 5-cent federal increase would mean that Californians in 1994 would be paying total gasoline taxes of 37 cents a gallon.

A 5-cent federal tax hike would raise about $6 billion a year, but it still would not cover the entire cost of the Democrats’ proposed highway and transit program. To completely finance the $153.5-billion proposal, Congress would have to authorize additional spending from the highway trust fund, which receives 11.5 cents of the current 14-cent federal tax.

The other 2.5 cents--half of the 5-cent increase approved last fall--goes directly to the government’s general revenue to help offset the federal budget deficit.

Spending new gas tax revenue would require an exemption to the spending limits included in the comprehensive budget reconciliation bill passed last fall by Congress, a senior congressional aide said.

Besides Foley and Roe, the House gas tax plan also is backed by Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), chairman of the Public Works subcommittee on surface transportation. But the idea has received little attention so far in the Senate.

A Senate highway bill is scheduled to be introduced today by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who chairs the transportation subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Other committees have jurisdiction over mass transit and safety issues. The Moynihan bill will call for more highway spending than requested by the Administration, but much less than proposed by House Democrats.

Whatever its shape, the transportation bill that emerges from Congress this year will be the first major overhaul of the federal aid program for highways, bridges and mass transit systems in more than 30 years.

The current program was put in place in the 1950s to finance construction of the 42,500-mile system of interstate highways, which is now all but complete. In its place, Congress and the White House are trying to design a new system that will meet the transportation needs of the nation well into the 21st Century.

Staff writer William J. Eaton contributed to this story.

RIVAL ROAD AND TRANSIT PLANS

Proposed five-year funding for highways and mass transit under legislation endorsed by President Bush and the House Public Works and Transportation Committee.

HIGHWAYS MASS TRANSIT Bush House Bush House Year (billions of dollars) (billions of dollars) 1992 $16.2 $21.0 $2.9 $6.7 1993 16.5 24.5 2.9 6.8 1994 17.1 24.5 3.1 6.9 1995 18.6 24.5 3.1 7.0 1996 20.6 24.5 3.2 7.1 TOTAL $89.0 $119.0 $15.2 $34.5

Source: Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, House Public Works and Transportation Committee.