5-Cent Gas Tax Hike Urged by House Members

Setting the stage for a showdown with the Senate and White House, key House members proposed a 5-cent gasoline tax increase Wednesday to finance a five-year, $154-billion building and repair program for the nation’s highways, bridges and mass transit systems.

A House transportation package unveiled Wednesday would raise the federal gas tax to 19 cents a gallon, and over the next five years would nearly double the $80 billion in transportation aid that the federal government handed out to states between 1986 and 1991.

In addition, it would generally establish a uniform 80%-20%, federal-state match for transportation aid and revise the arcane formulas, some dating in part to 1916, used to parcel out billions of dollars in transportation funds.

“In the 1960s and the 1970s, we invested 2.3% of our (gross national product) in transportation. Today, that has shrunk to 0.4%,” said Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation subcommittee on surface transportation.

“There’s a very clear linkage between what we invested and what the result is out there,” Mineta said.

The Bush Administration and key members of the Senate oppose any increase in the federal gasoline tax, which was raised last year from 9 cents to 14 cents a gallon, in part to help reduce the growing federal budget deficit.

The Administration has proposed a transportation package that calls for spending $105 billion over the next five years. The Senate last week passed a bill that authorizes $123 billion in spending over the same period but gives states more flexibility than afforded by the Administration’s proposal to spend federal aid either on highways or mass transit.

The House version of the bill will be introduced after Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess, Mineta said.

For the last 35 years, federal transportation aid has been concentrated in a maze of programs designed to build the 42,800-mile system of interstate highways. With the exception of small segments in Los Angeles and Boston, the interstate network is now finished, and the legislation that authorized it expires on Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

The House transportation package calls for spending $120 billion on highway programs and $33.5 billion on transit over the next five years. But funds from many of the highway programs could be shifted over to transit projects.

For example, the major share of highway aid would be directed toward a new National Highway System that would include the existing interstates and 90,000 to 130,000 miles of other primary roads. But a state would be free to divert 25% of the money allocated under the National Highway System program to other programs that could finance transit projects.