Oregon Congressman Wants Big Boost in Federal Gas Tax

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DALLAS — Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., will introduce a bill raising the federal gasoline tax by 15 cents per gallon over a three-year period from the current 18.4 cents per gallon.

Blumenauer will announce the effort, which would increase the tax rate by more than 80% to generate billions of dollars a year for roads and bridges, at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.

In a brief floor speech in the House on Tuesday, Blumenauer said the higher gasoline tax would provide additional revenues to bolster the rapidly dwindling Highway Trust Fund. The fund will be unable to meet its commitments by the end of fiscal 2015.

Repairing and extending the nation's transportation infrastructure would create jobs and make the United States more competitive in a global economy, he said.

"This is an opportunity to meet unmet needs and stabilize an important part of our budget, and revive a flagging economy," Blumenauer said. "It's the fastest way to put hundreds of thousands of people to work at family pay scales, and revive our flagging economy."

The legislation will be titled the "Update, Promote, and Develop America's Transportation Essentials Act of 2013."

The draft bill would increase the federal gasoline tax 8 cents in 2014, another four cents in 2015, and three cents in 2016.

The per-gallon tax would remain at 33.4 cents, adjusted for inflation beginning in 2016 through 2025, when it would revert back to 2013 levels.

The federal gas tax was last raised in 1993.

The federal tax on diesel would go to 39.3 cents a gallon by 2016 from the current 19.3 cents per gallon under Blumenauer's bill.

"It is the sense of Congress that by 2024 the gas tax should be repealed and replaced with a more sustainable, stable funding source," the draft bill says.

The proposed bill cites a 2009 study by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission that recommends a federal funding system based on vehicle miles traveled.

The two-year Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) transportation funding law passed in 2012 provided $105 billion for surface transportation projects but required a $19 billion transfer from the general fund to the federal Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent.

That law will expire on Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2014, and the Congressional Budget Office says that without some solution the fund will not have sufficient resources in fiscal 2015 to meet all its obligations without additional transfers.

The current tax generates $32 billion a year, Blumenauer said, but an additional $15 billion a year is needed maintain funding at current levels.

"If we do not find a way to make the Highway Trust Fund solvent, the continued disinvestment will mean an over 30% drop in federal transportation spending in 2024," he said.

Last year, Blumenauer introduced a bill that would have required the Treasury Department to study alternatives to the current per-gallon fuel tax, including a way to tax drivers on a per-mile basis. The measure, HR 6662, did not pass.

"We cannot wait to invest in our nation's roads, bridges, and public transit," Blumenauer said when he introduced the earlier bill. "America's infrastructure needs critical investments now, and with the highway trust fund flirting with a dangerous deficit, we need innovative solutions that will create a steady source of revenue."

Blumenauer will be joined at Wednesday's event by Ed Wytkind, president of AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department, Janet Kavinoky, executive director for transportation and infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and representatives of American Society of Civil Engineers, American Road and Transportation Builders Association, and Associated General Contractors of America.

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