Highway fight revs up in Senate

A fight over the future of federal transportation spending is revving up in the Senate with just days to go before the expiration of the current infrastructure funding measure. 

Lawmakers are facing a July 31 deadline for the expiration of current infrastructure funding, and the upper chamber is scrambling to put together enough money to pay for a multi-year extension. 

The drive for a new long-term highway bill is scheduled to begin in earnest on Tuesday with a vote to begin debate on the measure. 

{mosads}But the quest is already being threatened by a number of senators who have threatened to gum up the upcoming floor debate to spotlight issues like Planned Parenthood’s funding and Democratic-endorsed safety regulations that were cut in a Republican-led committee. 

House leaders have also opposed a proposal in the Senate to add language to the measure reinstating the controversial Export-Import bank. 

Supporters of the long-term transportation measure are hoping that the Senate can overcome the objections long enough to pass an infrastructure funding bill that lasts longer than two years for the first time since George W. Bush was president. 

“How many more bridges have to collapse before we come together and pass a 6-year, robust transportation bill?” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said after a bridge collapse on Monday in Interstate 10 in her home state. 

“Instead of another short-term extension, we need to work together, as Democrats and Republicans, to enact legislation that will repair our deficient bridges, highways and transportation systems,” Boxer continued. 

Boxer has been negotiating on a potential package of payment methods that could be used to fund a multi-year transportation bill with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in recent days. 

McConnell said Monday that that he and Boxer are on the verge of clinching a long-term transportation agreement. 

“I spoke with her yesterday and we’re hoping to be able to announce tomorrow a major bipartisan multi-year highway bill,” McConnell said in Shepherdsville, Ky.

“There’s a good chance that by tomorrow, you will have a McConnell-Boxer multiyear highway bill on the floor of the Senate,” McConnell added. 

The Senate’s planned first procedural vote on a long-term highway bill on Tuesday comes just 10 days before the July 31 deadline for replenishing the Highway Trust Fund. The test vote is seen as a big deal because Congress has passed a series of 34 temporary extensions since a 2005 measure expired in 2009. 

“Sens. [Jim] Inhofe (R-Okla.), Boxer, and McConnell (R-KY) should be commended for their efforts to find a pathway forward for a six-year bipartisan Highway bill that will help keep motorists safe, create good jobs, repair our crumbling transportation infrastructure, and keep our nation competitive,” Laborers’ International Union of North America General President Terry O’Sullivan said in a statement. 

“It is encouraging that some senators are stepping forward to find a solution that will provide long-term sustainable investment,” he continued. “Too many lives are at stake, too many jobs are at risk and our nation’s place in the world is threatened without it.” 

Congress has been grappling since 2005 with a transportation funding shortfall that is estimated to be about $16 billion per year. 

The 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax has been the main source of transportation funding for decades, but the tax has not been increased since 1993 and more fuel-efficient cars have sapped its buying power. The federal government typically spends about $50 billion per year on transportation projects, but the gas tax only brings in approximately $34 billion annually.

Transportation advocates have pushed for a gas tax increase to pay for a long-term transportation bill, but McConnell and other Republican leaders have ruled out a tax hike.

Congressional budget scorekeepers have estimated it will take about $100 billion, in addition to the gas tax revenue, to pay for a six-year transportation bill.

Senators are looking at a package of roughly $80 billion in offsets to supplement the gas tax revenue that includes revenue from changes to federal pensions and sales of oil that is currently stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). 

The House, meanwhile, has passed smaller package of $8 billion that relies on $3 billion worth of savings from Transportation Security Administration fees and $5 billion in tax compliance measures to fund road projects through Dec. 18.