DALLAS -- The Senate will begin work on an extension of the Highway Trust Fund next week, but probably not the six-year bipartisan bill adopted by a key Senate committee last month, said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Talking to reporters on Wednesday, McConnell did not specify how long the extension would be or how it would be funded. He expressed no interest in bolstering federal transportation funding with revenue from a corporate tax overhaul targeting overseas earnings as proposed in tax reform reports released Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee, and again said that an increase in the federal gasoline tax would not be considered.
"We're not going to raise the gas tax," McConnell said. "With regard to the possibility of some kind of tax reform being a component of this, I'm skeptical."
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Wednesday that he might recommend a presidential veto of another short-term HTF fix unless it provides time to reach agreement on a long-term funding source.
The current two-month HTF patch will expire July 31.
"We are reaching a serious, serious crisis," Foxx said. "The patience level is running low."
More than 30 short-term HTF extensions in eight years are making it impossible for state officials to plan for major transportation projects, Foxx said.
"We need to work hard to break the cycle," Foxx said. "What's happening right now is not fair to future generations. It's frankly not even fair to people who are on our road systems today."
Senate Democrats last month set a mid-July deadline for Republicans to propose a long-term surface transportation bill. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the finance committee, who supports tax reform as a transportation funding source, said a short-term extension might be acceptable if it results in a multiyear bill.
"Many people on both sides of the aisle would have less objection to an extension if there's a real possibility of getting something done," Schumer said Wednesday.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and seven other Democrats sent a letter to McConnell blasting him and other Republicans for failing to come up a long-term transportation funding bill.
They noted that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed such a bipartisan bill on June 24, but complained McConnell seems to have no interest in moving forward with it.
"Your announcement that the Senate will consider transportation-related legislation in two weeks, in which you expressed skepticism about long-term legislation, and included no details regarding the bill's financing, duration, or policy provisions, seems to confirm that no serious effort will be made to advance the kind of comprehensive transportation bill that our economy needs and Americans deserve," they told McConnell.
"We have become increasingly alarmed by a lack of further action on the work needed to make meaningful progress on a comprehensive surface transportation bill before we once again face an unnecessary highway 'cliff,' " the Democrats said in the letter.
The six-year DRIVE Act approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would provide $277.4 billion of highway funding over six years, about $32 billion more than the current level. The measure does not include public transit funding, which would add $60 billion or more to the expenditures.
A six-year transportation bill would require up to $100 billion of revenue to support the federal gasoline and diesel fuel taxes and other levies dedicated to the HTF. Offsetting the additional revenue with spending cuts in other areas will be difficult, McConnell said.
"There is considerable skepticism that you could pay for a bill of six-year duration," he said. "The best way to deal with the tax code in my view is comprehensive [reform], an entire scrub."
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said Thursday that an overhaul of the international tax code may be the best available revenue source. He said the proposed reforms outlined by the Senate Finance Committee "tracks with what the House has been doing." Ryan has repeatedly ruled out a gasoline tax increase.
Ryan said another HTF extension through the end of 2015 is needed to give Congress time to reach consensus on funding a multiyear highway bill.
"It is impossible to put in place a six-year financing package for highways in the next two weeks," he said. "We want a six-year highway bill. We want to give states the ability to plan ahead."
Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., said this week that he will propose a bill to resolve the revenue shortfall in the HTF by raising the federal gasoline tax by 10 cents per gallon. The higher tax would cost the average motorist about $130 a year but that would be offset with a $133 per year individual income tax credit to make it revenue neutral, Rice said.
