DALLAS — A group of five Senate Democrats scolded the Republican leadership Thursday for failing to offer a long-term transportation funding measure before the $10.8 billion patch for the Highway Trust Fund passed by Congress last summer expires on May 31.
"We're careening toward the highway cliff, and there's no plan from the Republican leadership to stop us from driving right off it and no plan to keep our infrastructure in good shape for years to come," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
"We're just over three short weeks from a shutdown of the Highway Trust Fund, and our friends on the other side of the aisle haven't uttered a peep about what they're going to do about it," he said.
Schumer was joined at the news conference by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Bill Nelson, D- Fla.
"We're here with a simple plea to our Republican colleagues: Please tell us how you propose to avoid a highway construction shutdown and how are we going to fund our roads and bridges in the years ahead," Schumer said.
Another extension of the HTF such as the one for the remainder of 2015 suggested by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is unacceptable, he said.
"The Republicans told us last year when we passed this 10-month patch that it would give them time to find a long-term revenue solution," he said. "Where is it? We have no idea of what they are even thinking of."
The next highway bill should provide funding levels close to the $478 billion over six years proposed by President Obama, Schumer said.
The House Appropriations Committee adopted a fiscal 2016 spending plan last week that essentially freezes federal highway and transit spending at fiscal 2015 levels. The president's proposal would boost highway funding next year by $25.9 billion from 2015's $51.3 billion and add $7.3 billion to 2015's $10.9 billion of transit funding.
"Flat funding is unacceptable," he said. "Finding the money for [a spending increase] won't be easy but we're ready to sit down and discuss it."
The Democrats had no other transportation proposal other than the president's Grow America Act, Schumer said. There is no consensus on a solution among Senate Democrats, he said.
"We have ideas but it takes two to tango," Schumer said. "They are the majority party, and none of the four [Senate] committees involved with transportation have marked up a bill or has a plan."
Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said earlier this week that he is looking for $11 billion of revenues to offset general fund transfers needed to extend the HTF's solvency through the end of calendar 2015.
"I think I can raise that," he said Tuesday.
Hatch said Wednesday that Republicans in the House are unlikely to accept the higher taxes that would be needed to support a fully funded multiyear transportation bill such as the one being developed by Sens. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the committee's ranking minority member.
Inhofe said Wednesday that he and Boxer are working on a five- to six-year transportation bill with increased funding that should be ready for consideration by the end of May.
Cash balances in the Highway Trust Fund should be adequate to sustain transportation spending through June, which Inhofe said should give Congress time to agree on a multiyear bill and how to pay for it.
Boxer and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a candidate for the Republican presidential primary in 2016, filed a bill in April that would bolster the HTF with dedicated revenues from a 6.5% tax on corporate overseas earnings that are returned voluntarily to the United States.
