http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/infrastructure/329025-lahood-gas-tax-should-be-increased-by-10-cents-per-gallon
By Keith Laing, October 17, 2013
Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said this week that Congress
should raise the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax by 10 cents per
gallon and index it to inflation to pay for transportation projects.
The
gas tax was last increased to its current rate in 1993, but LaHood said
during a transportation forum that it is time to considering hiking it
again.
“The highway trust fund has been a good source of
funding. It can't be the only source of funding. I believe Congress
ought to raise the gas tax 10 cents a gallon and index it. If the gas
tax had been indexed in 1993, we wouldn't be having this debate," LaHood
said,
according to Washington, DC radio station WAMU 88.5 A.M.
"What happens when gasoline standards, CAFE standards, go to 54.5 miles
per gallon,” LaHood continued. “We're going to have less gas receipts."
LaHood
generally shied away from proposing specific fixes to the shortfall in
road and transit funding during his tenure as transportation secretary,
deferring to President Obama and Congress to identify specific money
pools.
The gas tax traditionally brings in $35 billion per year,
but the most recent transportation bill spent $54 billion annually,
which transportation advocates say is just enough to scratch to maintain
the current system.
LaHood said the gas tax shortfall hamstrung
lawmakers as they crafted the 2012 transportation bill, which is known
as the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act.
“You
[have] to have a big pot of money,” he said. “We don't have it now. The
reason Congress passed a two-year bill, MAP-21, was because they could
only find $109 billion. We need a 5 or 600 billion dollar transportation
program. That will just scratch the surface."
The current
Transportation bill is scheduled to expire in September 2014. Lawmakers
have begun holding hearings about possible funding sources for a new
round of road and transit funding, but the discussions were interrupted
by the recently completed government shutdown.
LaHood said the conversations would have to get revved up again quickly.
"America
has always been No. 1 in transportation,” he said. “We are not No. 1
today. We are way down the list. China is going to build 85 airports
this year. They are building roads, and bridges, and high-speed rail.
Why? To attract businesses that create jobs.
"All of these forms
of transportation become job creators for the people that build them,
job creators for the economic corridors that are created, and it
enhances the community," LaHood said.
