House Leaders Looking for Extra Revenue to Avoid Slashing Highway & Transit Programs

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Florida, has been given a green light from House Republican leadership to seek additional revenue for a multiyear surface transportation reauthorization bill that could avoid a 34% cut proposed in a House budget earlier this year, according to several media reports in the past week.”Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are willing to try and find more money for highway and bridge construction and transit upgrades as part of long-term transportation funding legislation,” Reuters reported. Mica “recently received a commitment from leadership to help identify new sources of funding to try to ensure that budgeting over a six-year period would at least meet today’s spending levels, a senior congressional aide told Reuters.”

ITS America stated this week that Mica told it and other stakeholders at a recent Capitol Hill briefing that Republican House leaders have given him approval to look for additional sources of revenue for the transportation reauthorization bill, with the goal of passing a six-year bill funded at no less than current levels. Mica’s comments at the briefing last week have been widely reported in the Washington media and transportation trade press.

House leaders continue to oppose an increase in the gas tax, according to ITS America, but told Mica they are committed to finding other sources of revenue.

One alternative proposed by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would link increased funding for transportation to increased domestic energy production.

Congress recently passed the eighth short-term extension of the 2005 surface transportation law known as “SAFETEA-LU,” which expired Sept. 30, 2009. That extension lasts until March 31. (see Sept. 23 AASHTO Journal story) Neither the House nor the Senate have introduced a multiyear reauthorization measure. The House has been eyeing a six-year highway and transit bill at lower funding levels. Meanwhile, the Senate has been discussing a two-year bill at current funding levels. To maintain current funding levels, more revenue would need to flow into the Highway Trust Fund.

Forecasts for federal gas tax receipts over the next six years are expected to settle at about $35 billion annually, Reuters reported. Maintaining funding at today’s level over that period would require another $100 billion.