DALLAS — President Obama will soon propose a revised version of last year's $302 billion, four-year transportation bill funded with revenue from corporate tax reform, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a Senate committee on Wednesday.
"We will send a new, improved version of the Grow America Act to you this year," Foxx said at a hearing held by the Environment and Public Works Committee. The committee is working on a reauthorization of the 27-month Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century transportation bill that was extended by Congress with a $10.8 billion transfer from the general fund. The finance and commerce committees will also be developing portions of a Senate surface transportation measure.
Congress failed to consider the Grow America Act last year and instead passed a short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund's solvency that expires May 31, Foxx said.
Foxx did not discuss the details of the revised proposal, but said it would substantially increase federal transportation spending and provide opportunities for attracting more private investment in public infrastructure.
"We've got to do something dramatic," he said. "To hell with the politics in Washington."
Funding for Obama's 2014 transportation plan included $150 billion of one-time revenue from a revision of the federal tax on corporate overseas earnings and a similar amount of gasoline tax collections.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the panel, said she is meeting with Republican lawmakers to find bipartisan agreement on a reliable, steady revenue stream for the highway fund through corporate tax reform.
"I am currently working across the aisle on a proposal to provide stable funding for the HTF through repatriation, which would not only save the HTF, but would stimulate the economy by bringing back hundreds of billions of dollars in offshore earnings," she said.
"Finding that sweet spot will require us to consider a broad range of options in order to find a long-term solution to our transportation funding crisis," Boxer said.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said repatriation could provide the revenues needed to fully fund a long-term transportation infrastructure bill.
"That is not a fully permanent solution but those are big dollars that could fund a significant bill of a significant duration," he said.
Vitter said he would support an increase in the federal gasoline tax only if there are some offsetting income tax cuts for middle-class wage earners.
Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., said he will introduce a bill as early as next week to raise the federal gasoline tax by 3 to 4 cents a year for three or four years to restore the spending power lost by the 18.4 cent per gallon tax since its last increase in 1993.
Carper proposed a gasoline tax increase of 12 cents over four years in 2014.
The next federal transportation bill should extend funding for four to six years to provide states with funding certainty, said Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, vice chairman of the National Governors Association economic development committee, who testified at the hearing.
"States need predictable federal funding and the flexibility to use existing and new financing mechanisms when public funding falls short," he told the committee.
States have become innovative in transportation financing as federal funding has grown less reliable but turning over all transportation funding responsibility to the states, or devolution, is a bad idea, Bentley said.
"Governors agree that successful state action does not justify federal disengagement or devolution," he said. "Action at the state level must not be interpreted as an invitation for Congress to completely transfer the federal transportation program to state and local governments."
Maintaining the federal tax exemption on municipal bonds is vital to state and local transportation funding, Bentley said.
"Federal laws and regulations, either directly or indirectly, should not increase the costs states incur to issue municipal bonds or decrease investor appetite to purchase them," he said.
