DALLAS — President Obama pressed Congress to quickly increase spending on transportation infrastructure in a speech Wednesday at a bridge project work site.
"If Congress doesn't act by the end of the summer, money for transportation projects will run out," Obama said at the $4 billion Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project in Tarrytown, N.Y. "There will be no more money. The cupboard will be bare."
The administration's proposed $302 billion transportation infrastructure funding bill provides $199 billion for road and bridge projects over the next four years, a 22% increase in funding from fiscal 2014 in the current two-year bill that expires Sept. 30.
However, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will meet Thursday to approve a six-year bill that keeps highway funding at fiscal 2014 levels plus inflation. The committee's bill developed by chairman Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the panel's other leaders from both parties, would provide $242 billion for highway projects through fiscal 2020.
Mr. Obama did not mention the Senate proposal but criticized a House panel that approved a fiscal 2015 budget for the Transportation Department that slashed highway spending.
"This should not be a partisan issue," he said. "We need Congress to work with us on this issue."
The Transportation Department's website shows the highway account of the Highway Trust Fund will drop to the $4 billion threshold in late July and DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx said last week that reimbursements to states for road projects will be delayed if that happens before Congress can replenish the fund.
The president also proposed quicker permitting of transportation projects as part of his plan for building a 21st century infrastructure.
The Senate committee's proposed six-year reauthorization of the current two-year Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century highway bill, which expires on Sept. 30, is a good step but it does not go far enough, said Randall Over, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
"Regrettably, while the bill may reflect political realities, it does not go far enough in addressing our country's investment gap," Over said." Our challenges are too vast and the costs are too great for us to continue with the status quo."
The president's proposal relies on $150 billion of one-time revenues from a revamping of the federal corporate tax code to supplement dwindling gasoline tax revenues, the main source for the Highway Trust Fund. Called the Grow America Act, it would allow states to put tolls on existing interstate highways if the revenue is dedicated to maintenance or capacity improvements.
The Senate committee's draft legislation does not include interstate tolling or any other additional revenue stream. Boxer told the Senate Finance Committee last week that lawmakers must somehow fill a gap between gasoline tax revenues and projected expenditures that could be as much as $18 billion a year over the bill's six-year term.
A recent analysis from the Pew Charitable Trusts found the gasoline tax to be a dwindling resource for transportation funding.
"Revenue for the highway trust fund, the source of most federal funding for the country's roads and transit infrastructure, has fallen short of expenditures for more than a decade," the report said.
The revenue gap expected to widen further in future years, the Pew report found, as cars become more fuel efficient and driving habits change in favor of fewer, and shorter, trips.
Revenues from federal gasoline and diesel taxes peaked in the early 2000s at slightly under $50 billion a year before dropping steadily to the $34 billion a year expected by the Congressional Budget Office through 2020. State gasoline tax revenues have also declined, the analysis said, from $51 billion in 2004 to less than $40 billion in 2011.
Lawmakers have transferred a total of $54 billion from the Treasury's general fund to the Highway Trust Fund since 2008.
The transfers from the general fund were to be a temporary solution that has become semi-permanent, said Anne Stauffer, director of fiscal federalism at Pew.
"The problem has developed over time and it has now reached a decision point, where something has to be done," Stauffer said. "Transportation funding has become a challenge for national, state and local governments and that's primarily because of the gasoline tax."
State investments in transportation have plummeted in the past 10 years, the Pew analysis said, from $106 billion in 2003 to $80 billion in 2011. Federal spending remained relatively stable over the period at about $56 billion a year, while transportation spending by local governments fell to $73 billion in 2011 from $78.5 billion in 2003.
Lawmakers have transferred a total of $54 billion from the Treasury's general fund to the Highway Trust Fund since 2008.
