Reid spars with GOP over road funding

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) accused Republicans of ignoring a looming deadline for extending the federal government’s transportation funding on Tuesday. 

“Transportation would be the first easy place to find agreement in Congress,” he said during a speech on the Senate floor. 

“But Mr. President, it’s hard to comprehend, but the Republican majority in the Senate has not held a single hearing on this most important piece of legislation. Not a single hearing. Nothing,” he continued. 

{mosads}Republicans immediately disputed Reid’s account, saying lawmakers in the upper chamber have held multiple hearings on the transportation subject, including a meeting that was taking place Tuesday morning. 

“Here is some factual information correcting the record on an erroneous statement Sen. Reid made on the Senate floor this morning about the Senate  holding ‘not a single hearing’ on reauthorization of surface transportation legislation,” the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee said in an email to reporters. 

“In addition to other Committees who share jurisdiction over the surface bill, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has in fact held SEVEN HEARINGS – one of which is happening today – directly on or related to reauthorization,” the GOP-led panel continued.  “Five of these hearings were chaired by Sen. [Deb] Fischer [R-Neb.] at the subcommittee level and two by Sen. [John] Thune [R-S.D.] at the full committee.” 

The back and forth comes against a backdrop of a May 31 deadline for extending federal transportation spending. 

The Department of Transportation has warned that it will have to begin cutting back on payments to state governments for construction projects that are already underway in late July or early August if Congress does not reach a deal to extend the infrastructure funding. 

Lawmakers in both parties have expressed a desire to prevent such an interruption in the road and transit spending, but they have been struggling to come up with a way to pay for an extension.

The traditional source of transportation funding has been revenue that is collected by 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. 

The federal government typically spends about $50 billion per year on transportation projects, but the gas tax only brings in $34 billion. 

Lawmakers have turned to other areas of the federal budget to close the $16 billion gap in infrastructure funding in recent years, but transportation advocates have complained the temporary patches are making it too difficult for state and local governments to plan long-term construction projects. 

Transportation advocates have suggested that raising the tax or at least indexing it to inflation would be the easiest way to close the infrastructure funding shortfall, but lawmakers have been reluctant to ask drivers to pay more at the pump. 

Reid threatened Monday to block consideration of a controversial trade bill until Congress takes up legislation to address the transportation funding problem.