Ports may finally get some federal dollars for "last mile" connections between their harbors and the highway system. The House Transportation Committee has included funding for highway connections between intermodal hubs and ports in the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (TEA LU) legislation that appropriates money for the nation's infrastructure. TEA LU is the successor to the 2003 Transportation Equity Act (known as SAFETEA), which recently expired and received a six-month extension.

Where SAFETEA called for states to set aside 2 percent of the monies granted them through the program for these intermodal connectors, TEA LU includes $3 billion in separate funding for them, said a spokesperson in the office of Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.). Oberstar is co-author of the bill with Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska). Funding levels for intermodal improvements are set at $300 million for 2004, rising to $400 million in 2005, then $500 million in 2006, and leveling off at $600 million each year thereafter until 2009. "We felt that there are separate programs needed for this rather than requiring the states to use their own money for these improvements," the spokesperson said.

The government can no longer afford to put off funding for intermodal connector improvements, he added. "There was a major study done by the Federal Highway Administration in the late 1990s that identified these needs, which generally fall through the cracks. These projects don't tend to end up high on the priority list."

The bill's sponsors are championing a controversial increase in the national gasoline tax as a means of funding the various programs in TEA LU. Oberstar's spokesperson suggested that the increase would likely be roughly 5 cents per gallon. "It would require a retrospective indexing of the gas tax going back to 1993, since it hasn't been raised since then," he said. "What that would mean would be about a nickel-per-gallon increase at the beginning of the bill, with slight increases indexed to inflation out through 2009."

The trick, of course, is to sell such an increase to the people who inevitably will have to foot the bill. "It's a major challenge for us, but that is the way these types of programs have been funded since 1956," the spokesperson said. "We think this pay-as-you-go funding arrangement is the most efficient way to finance these programs."

Oberstar and Young are now pushing to have TEA LU in shape and ready for launch by the time the six-month extension on SAFETEA winds down at the end of this month.