Senators press for quick highway funding fix

A bipartisan pair of senators are pressing Congress for a fix to a transportation funding shortfall that is threatening construction projects across the nation. 

Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) are planning to hold a press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon to call attention to a looming deadline for extending federal transportation funding that is currently scheduled to expire on May 31. 

The senators said they will be joined by “a broad coalition of businesses, labor, and transportation organizations to highlight the importance of a long-term surface transportation bill and the need for Congress to act.” 

{mosads}The press conference comes as lawmakers are struggling to come up with a way to pay for an extension of the measure.

The Department of Transportation has said that its Highway Trust Fund will run out of money in July if Congress does not reach a deal on an extension. 

Lawmakers in both parties have expressed a desire to prevent an interrupt in federal transportation funding, but consensus of how best to pay for a new road of infrastructure spending has been elusive. 

The traditional source of transportation funding has been the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax. The tax has not been increased since 1993, however, and its buying power has been sapped by improvements in car fuel efficiency in recent years. 

Transportation advocates have pushed for an increase in the gas tax to pay for a new round of infrastructure spending, but lawmakers have been reluctant to ask drivers to pay more at the pump to help finance construction projects. 

Other proposals that have gained more support include using revenue from taxing overseas corporate profits to pay for transportation projects, but Republicans and Democrats have been unable to come to an agreement on whether the levies should be voluntary or mandatory. 

Transportation advocates applauded Inhofe and Boxer for calling attention to the looming infrastructure funding deadline.  

“We’re only a month and a half from the expiration of the current highway bill, so we implore leaders on Capitol Hill, at the Department of Transportation and in the White House to step up and deliver a plan – and funding – for the transportation system our country needs and deserves,” American Trucking Association President Bill Graves said in a statement. 

“One of the things that makes this country great is our mobility – the freedom to travel this country without restriction,” Graves continued. “However, we are threatening our ability to smoothly and safely move goods and people through our collective inaction. We again call on our leaders in Washington to find the appropriate funding to pay for the improved and expanded roads and bridges we need to continue moving America forward into the 21st century as the economic leaders we believe ourselves to be.”

-This story was updated with new information at 4:49 p.m.