Time for Congress to step up its game on a long-term transportation bill

When a new year arrives, it comes with a clean slate, or at least a chance to begin anew or fresh. That holds true for lots of things, too, like trying to eat better or exercise more, or watch less bad TV as a few general examples. But when it comes to Congress actually getting its act together on a new long-term federal transportation bill, things remain as status quo as it gets, with the big takeaway being nothing really ever gets done, when it comes to passing a badly overdue and needed bill, rather than these band-aid extensions Congress keeps signing off on.

These extensions, of course, do not augment the current situation, which is one in which our transportation needs are too many to count and lack significant funding or a true funding mechanism to get national transportation showing at least a semblance of getting its financial house in order.

Raise the federal gasoline tax that has not been raised since 1993, you ask? Why would that happen? Is it because it is too obvious and makes too much sense? One could easily come to the conclusion that it’s the case. While we come off the least productive and most reviled Congress ever in all likelihood, where gridlock is as much of a guarantee as the sun rising each day, one thing both sides of the aisle can always agree on is to not raise the tax, which serves as the main source of income for maintaining our nation’s roads and interstates in the Highway Trust Fund, which as you know, is constantly teetering on the edge of insolvency. LM has covered the federal gasoline tax and the Highway Trust Fund’s issues extensively over the years. To read more about that, please click here.

What I really want to discuss here are some comments from Department of Transportation Secretary Foxx at a Senate EPW Committee hearing yesterday.

At the outset, Foxx made it clear that nothing is more important for DOT than a new long-term transportation bill: “We are in a NEW year, with a NEW Congress. But I’m here to discuss an OLD issue: the need for a NEW transportation bill – a multiyear transportation bill with funding growth and policy reforms focused on America’s future.”

Taking that a step further, he explained that many states have pressing needs related to transportation infrastructure that are simply shelved or delayed, due to the lack of available funds, which is a popular and common refrain from over the years, to be sure.

In describing the trickle down effect of what the lack of inactivity is really doing, Foxx aptly noted that “gridlock in Washington is now creating gridlock on Main Street.”

He added that the White House’s proposed four-year, $302 billion transportation bill, the GROW America Act, basically is stuck in neutral, due to lack of Congressional action, while the current bill, MAP-21, received a ten-month extension last year, which expires at the end of May.

These extensions, short-term measures, continuing resolutions, or whatever you want to call them each have one thing in common: they are getting really, really old and even more predictable.

Foxx noted that the most recent extension is the 32nd one in the last six years and essentially “killing the will to build,” he said.

While the GROW America Act did not go anywhere, Foxx said the White House is ready to try again, with what he said is a new and improved version of it that is keenly focused on solving the infrastructure and mobility challenges of the future and require two key things to succeed: time and money in the form of five or more years, with commensurate funding for the lifespan of the legislation.

And along with time and money comes the need for related endeavors within the legislation, such as streamlining the permitting process “so projects go from blueprint to steel in the ground as fast as possible…while ensuring better outcomes for the environment,” and “opening the door for private investment–and in giving communities, MPOs and freight operators a louder voice in what gets built.

With all that said, U.S. transportation’s current policy and vision remains stuck in long-term parking. Wouldn’t it be nice to see our nation’s leaders get on the same page rather than just pushing the needle as little as possible. Not only is our transportation infrastructure future in peril should Congress remain parked, our economic future will face unwanted risk at a time when we are seeing some actual signs of growth. It would be incredibly unfortunate if nothing gets done. Hopefully, that is not the case this time around…again.