DALLAS – A significant majority of Americans support an increased level of federal investment in transportation infrastructure, according to a survey released Tuesday by AAA.
Additional funding is favored by 70% of the 1,008 adults included in the survey by ORC International, with 19% satisfied with the current levels and 9% in favor of less funding.
Almost half of those polled believe that Congress is not taking the steps necessary to meet the nation’s transportation needs, said AAA chief executive officer Marshall Doney.
“Americans rely on our nation’s roads and bridges every day, yet congressional inaction has led to longer commutes, more potholes and unsafe conditions,” Doney said. “Motorists are dissatisfied that our national leaders repeatedly have failed to meet the basic needs of drivers across the country.”
Congress has wasted billions of dollars through general revenue transfers into the Highway Trust Fund over the past 10 years because the federal gasoline tax and other dedicated highway revenues have been insufficient to meet transportation needs, Doney said.
The HTF must have at least $15 billion a year of additional revenue just to support current transportation funding, he said, and the current levels are not enough.
“It’s time for Congress to pass long-term funding legislation that ensures our transportation system receives the maintenance necessary to get Americans to work every day,” Doney said.
Expenditures from the HTF to reimburse states for highway and transit projects totaled $53.7 billion in fiscal 2015. Revenues from the federal tax of 18.4 cents on gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel and from other dedicated sources totaled $39.6 billion.
Increases in the federal fuel taxes would be the “most viable, effective and immediate solution” to the revenue shortfall, “provided the additional funds are invested in transportation improvements that benefit motorists,” said Kathleen Bower, AAA’s vice president of public affairs and international relations.
Talks on using revenue generated by changes in the international tax code to support the HTF broke down earlier this month when House Republican leaders balked at the higher funding levels sought by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is expected to consider a multiyear highway bill next week, but is unlikely to complete the voting process before the most recent HTF extension expires Oct. 29.
Committee chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said last month that another short-term reauthorization of expenditures from the HTF will be needed to be able to reach accord with the Senate on the revenues for a long-term highway bill.
The $8.1 billion of general revenue transferred into the HTF by the current 90-day extension (P.L. 114-41) is expected to keep the fund solvent into late November.
The Senate’s six-year DRIVE Act (H.R. 22), which it passed and sent to the House in late July, would authorize expenditures from the HTF of $273.4 billion for highways and $59.3 billion for transit. The bill includes $47 billion of offsets to allow the transfer of general revenues into the HTF, but is fully funded for only the first three years.
President Obama’s six-year, $478 billion Grow America Act (H.R. 2410) would increase transportation funding to $77.2 billion in the first year and raise it annually to $82.3 billion by the sixth year. Revenues supporting the measure include $240 billion of gasoline and other tax revenues and $238 billion from a proposed mandatory tax on overseas corporate earnings.
Funding in the Grow America Act includes $317 billion for highways, $114.6 billion for transit, $28.6 billion for rail, and $7.5 billion of discretionary grants.
