http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/automobiles/324595-boxer-replace-gas-tax-with-wholesale-oil-fees-to-pay-for-transportation-projects
By Keith Laing, September 25, 2013
The chairwoman of the Senate committee that oversees infrastructure
projects said on Wednesday that the federal government should replace
its 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline purchases with a fee that is
paid by oil wholesalers.
Getting rid of the federal gas tax in
lieu of a wholesale oil tax increase would help close an approximately
$20 billion shortfall in transportation spending Congress is looking to
solve, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said.
"There are many ideas
out there, and the one that I'm leaning toward myself, although this is
going to be a decision of the [Senate] Finance Committee ... is to do
away with the per-gallon fee at the pump and replace it with this sales
fee as they've done in Virginia and Maryland," Boxer said during a
hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
"It
would fund the highway program for six years ... I think, and it would
do that by doing away with all the other fees," Boxer continued. "It's a
very exciting idea.
Since the 1930s, Congress has paid for transportation projects by
collecting a tax on each gallon of gas that is purchased by drivers.
Currently the federal gas tax, which has not been increased since 1993,
brings in approximately $35 billion a year.
The most recently
approved surface transportation bill that was passed by Congress in 2012
included approximately $54 billion per year for infrastructure
projects, which advocates say is barely enough to cover the cost of
maintaining the current state of the U.S. transportation system without
making any improvements.
Boxer spoke about being "in the
trenches" with GOP members of the Senate committee on Wednesday during
the passage of the 2012 transportation measure, which was dubbed the
Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act.
That
measure was paid for with the package of trust fund sweeps and fee
increases in addition to the money from the gas tax. The
cobbled-together funding package was only enough to cover transportation
spending for two years, unlike other road and transit funding packages
that have historically lasted five or six years.
Boxer said
on Wednesday that there was bipartisan agreement that Congress needed to
find a new funding source for transportation, which she noted was rare
amid a larger debate about possibly shutting down the government over
healthcare.
"We're here on an issue that has united us, and
that's good thing, given that we probably couldn't pass a Mother's Day
resolution around here," Boxer said. "I think it's excellent that we can
agree that transportation is something we can rally around and work
together on."
The current law that provides transportation funding is scheduled to expire in September 2014.
Boxer
said that Congress could avoid having to pay for transportation
projects with money from other areas of the federal budget again when
that time comes by replacing the taxes that are paid by drivers at the
pump with levies that collected when gas stations purchase their
supplies.
"I really believe we can get a sustainable funding
source for transportation," she said. "I believe this, I've seen some
ideas that are quite compelling on how to do this. Simplify things, get
one funding source, follow the lead of some of our states that are
turning to a percentage highway fee that is paid at the refinery level.
This could bring in more than all of the other taxes bring in for
transportation."
