House GOP Works Toward Renewing Highway Programs at Current Levels

By Kathryn A. Wolfe, CQ Staff

House Republicans appear to have signed off on what could be a game-changer for the surface transportation bill: adopting the Senate’s approach of finding just enough revenue to keep funding at current levels.

At a meeting last week with stakeholders, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John L. Mica, R-Fla., said Republican leaders had given him the green light to search for additional revenue for the bill that authorizes highway and surface transportation programs.

Justin Harclerode, Mica’s spokesman, said the goal is to find enough revenue to pay for a six-year bill that would continue current spending levels — which would require about an additional $15 billion annually to supplement the funds projected to be available in the Highway Trust Fund.

“The leadership has committed to him that we will look at our options for additional revenue,” Harclerode said.

It’s unclear what will be on and off the table in terms of revenue, although Harclerode said a gas tax increase won’t be part of the mix.

Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said only that Boehner is “committed to responsible infrastructure spending.”

Steel referenced Boehner’s Sept. 15 speech at the Washington Economic Club, in which the Speaker “discussed the possibility of linking expanded American energy production with increased transportation funding.”

Boehner has not fleshed out how expanded oil and gas leasing could be tied to infrastructure spending as a policy matter. Since it can take years for new oil and gas leases to begin production, how much money such a plan could generate in the short term is uncertain.

Regardless of where the money may come from, the House and Senate being on the same page in terms of maintaining current spending levels will help push the debate forward. Until now, Mica has said the House surface transportation bill would be limited to spending that the Highway Trust Fund could support, which would require a reduction from current levels.

Senate Democrats are working on a $109 billion, two-year bill that would maintain current levels of spending plus inflation.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is done with its draft version of a surface transportation bill but is waiting on the Senate Finance Committee to come up with a bipartisan set of revenue-raisers to bridge the $12 billion gap between what the Highway Trust Fund can sustain and what that version of the bill would spend.

Taxes on gasoline and diesel are the biggest contributors to the Highway Trust Fund, but they have not kept pace with spending demands, as fuel-efficient vehicles grow in popularity and taxes lose ground to inflation.