The chairman and ranking Republican of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee agreed Thursday that Congress shouldn’t wait until it has to reauthorize a highway bill in 2009 to begin improving the nation’s infrastructure.

Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., said he has been pressing leaders to include transportation investments in an economic stimulus package currently in the works.

At a hearing on a bipartisan commission’s recommendations to overhaul surface transportation, John L. Mica of Florida, the committee’s ranking Republican, told witnesses that “we might as well start now on your proposals.”

The commission, mandated by the 2005 highway law (PL 109-59), released its report Tuesday. It is meant to act as a jumping-off point for lawmakers in the early stages of drafting an authorization bill for the 111th Congress.

But committee members on both sides of the aisle are eager to pump funds into projects immediately.

“You have to plant the tree today that you should have planted 20 years ago,” Don Young, R-Alaska, the committee’s former chairman, said. “We shouldn’t wait any longer.”

“I ensure the gentleman we’re going to start to plant the trees today,” Oberstar responded.

The state of crumbling public infrastructure in the United States, particularly the extensive number of bridges needing rehabilitation, has received significant attention since the Aug. 1 failure of a highway bridge in Minneapolis, which killed 13 people and injured more than 140.

Oberstar said the most controversial recommendation from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission — to raise gasoline taxes by as much as 40 cents a gallon over five years — won’t be debated for a while.

Members did not denounce the idea, but wouldn’t come out and support it either, except for Young. “I’ve always supported and will continue to support raising funds,” he said.

The commission recommended boosting motor fuels taxes by 5 cents to 8 cents annually over five years and then index the tax to inflation.

Commission Vice Chairman Jack L. Schenendorf, an attorney at Covington & Burling who concentrates on transportation legislation, said the increases would cost the average American about 41 cents extra a day.

Three of President Bush’s four appointees dissented because of the gasoline tax recommendation and the commission’s chairwoman, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, declined an invitation to testify with the rest of the committee.

“I would have loved to hear her defend the indefensible,” Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, said.

The secretary’s plans to solve the nation’s infrastructure woes with more tolling, rationing and privatizing highways, “are unbelievably simplistic,” he said.

Oberstar said he believes the secretary will testify on her own another time and would not require him to issue a subpoena.