Gas tax imperiled as House, Senate play ‘infrastructure chicken’

Washington — 

The House on Thursday approved a three-month extension of federal highway spending, daring the Senate to act before the government’s authority to collect gas taxes lapses Saturday at midnight and disrupts transportation projects.

Transportation officials are hopeful the Senate will follow suit rather than risk losing $110 million a day in gas tax revenues, slowing down projects and forcing the furlough of thousands of federal highway and transit workers. The measure, which passed the House 266-158, could come before the Senate later Thursday.

But as has become all too familiar in this Congress, arguing Democratic and Republican lawmakers needed to act just hours before a deadline, this time over an unlikely subject – transportation, which traditionally has enjoyed bipartisan support.

Democrats have urged the House to pass the Senate-approved, two-year $109-billion transportation bill, noting it drew bipartisan support.

House Republican leaders say they need more time to try to draft their own version – one that includes a controversial expansion of oil drilling – inland and offshore – to generate money for road projects.

“This is like a bad soap opera,” Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) said Thursday.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) accused the House of playing a game of “infrastructure chicken.”

Democrats said that another extension – the ninth since the last big transportation bill expired in 2009 – would slow the nation’s economic recovery by making it difficult for transportation agencies to plan job-creating projects because of the uncertainty over how much money they will receive from Washington.

But Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, sarcastically suggested sending for the House physician to cure the “amnesia” of Democrats who have supported similar extensions in the past.

The White House urged the House to act swiftly on a longer bill.

“While it is critical that we not put American jobs and safety at risk and hurt our economic recovery by allowing funding to run out, it is not enough for us to continue to patch together our nation’s infrastructure future with short-term band-aids,” the White House said in a statement.

“States and cities need certainty to plan ahead and America’s construction workers deserve the peace of mind that they won’t have to worry about their jobs every few months.”

Passage of a transportation bill this year has been complicated by election-year politics and a gas tax that isn’t bringing in as much money because of increased use of more fuel-efficient cars.

In 2010, nearly 2,000 federal employees were furloughed during a two-day lapse in authorization for the highway program.

richard.simon@latimes.com

Original source: Gas tax revenue imperiled as House, Senate play ‘infrastructure chicken’