Gas Tax

In an op-ed in this morning’s New York Times, Laura D’Andrea Tyson argues for increased investment in infrastructure, pointing out that the nation’s infrastructure will deteriorate quickly if spending is not increased. Tyson chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton and currently serves on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives took a “symbolic” vote on raising the debt ceiling without any “strings attached” – i.e., the trillion dollars worth of spending cuts the Republicans are insisting on before they’ll agree to raise the debt ceiling.

In an op-ed in Politico this morning, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) calls for getting rid of waste and inefficiencies in the transportation system, shifting more power to the states, and “doing more with less.”

Connecticut state senators just voted to increase the state gas tax by three cents. The New Hampshire House Speaker has proposed cutting theirs by five cents – but only for two months, to help drivers bear the pain of high gas prices. In Georgia, the gas tax jumps every time gas prices go up by 25 cents. And at least one U.S. Senator is suggesting that more states start taking transportation funding into their own hands.

Congressional committees charged with drafting the new transportation bill have been holding hearings to seek input from stakeholders around the country. In today’s installment, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee heard from five state DOT chiefs, one city official, and the chair of FedEx. Those witnesses’ pleas to the committee ranged from bike trails and transit to highways and deregulation.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee just spent two days listening to 40 experts from different aspects of the transportation sector and advocacy community, from engineers to environmentalists to the Tea Party. Each person had just four minutes to speak and they crammed as much as they could into their time: observations, demands, recommendations for a better transportation bill. Their ideas were widely divergent on many points, but on one, they found unity: This should not be a smaller bill than the one that came before it.

With the White House unwilling to engage on the specifics of how to pay for its $556 billion transportation bill, members of Congress are studying the possibilities. Earlier this month, Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the potential of a vehicle-miles-traveled fee as a fairer way to tax drivers.

Senator Barbara Boxer got down to brass tacks on transportation funding in a committee hearing yesterday, even as DOT Secretary Ray LaHood remained vague on how to pay for the president's ambitious proposal. Boxer said she’s not in favor of raising the gas tax, but she’d like it to be indexed to inflation. “We don’t even know if the president would go that far with us,” she said, but clearly something needs to be done.