Congress is set to extend federal highway funding for two months, another legislative punt that leaves Georgia construction projects in limbo.
The U.S. House voted Tuesday to extend the authority of the highway trust fund for 60 days with existing revenue from the gas tax, and the Senate is likely to follow suit later this week. But beyond July, the fund will need a bailout from somewhere else in the federal budget.
This would be the 12th short-term extension of transportation funding authority since 2009. And while key legislators voiced frustration at kicking the can again, there is no consensus on how to rework a highway funding system that is perpetually falling short.
The Georgia Department of Transportation will go forward with letting out projects to bid for June.
“However, a two-month extension keeps us in the posture of planning and making project-letting decisions on a month-to-month basis,” GDOT spokeswoman Natalie Dale said. “Our hope continues to be that Congress will be able to identify a long-term solution as quickly as possible to provide greater certainty for planning and delivery of projects.”
‘We really can’t get started’
State Transportation Board Chairman Don Grantham said the department remains in the lurch.
“We have so many requests right now that would require some federal support, and we really can’t get started on them until we know that we’re going to have those type of dollars,” said Grantham, who lives in Augusta and represents the 12th Congressional District.
“This happens every time, and it happens nationally, locally, statewide, whatever,” Grantham added. “But your elected officials are more fearful of being re-elected than they are of trying to do what’s right.”
The 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax has remained the same since 1993, and it falls short of fueling the highway trust fund in part because cars have gotten more efficient, leading many advocates to call for an increase.
A tax increase appears to be a no-go in the Republican-run Congress, but U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., used Georgia as an example of a Republican state that hiked gas taxes this year to pay for pressing road needs.
“Utah, Idaho, Georgia, South Dakota — these are not flaming bastions of liberalism,” Blumenauer said on the House floor. “These are people that looked at the problem and they decided to step up.”
Plan ties overseas profits to funding
President Barack Obama has proposed filling the funding gap by requiring U.S. companies to bring back overseas profits to be taxed.
U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, a Lawrenceville Republican who is the only Georgian on the House Transportation Committee, said the problem is about more than funding. A long-term transportation bill, he said, should prevent the federal government from using highway trust fund money on sidewalks and bike lanes, which should instead be paid for by local governments.
“Should Washington pay for them is a fair question,” Woodall said. “But this conversation isn’t about not having enough revenue. There is enough revenue coming in. It’s about: Are the users who are paying the user fee believing those dollars go to road construction?”
The future lies in tricky negotiations in both chambers among the transportation and tax-raising committees.
The short-term bill “was not my preference,” U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., the chairman of the Transportation Committee, said in a floor speech. “What my preference is, is to buckle down, work hard, find the dollars and have a long-term surface transportation bill that’s sustainable.”
But Shuster said Congress’ task in the next two months is to come up with billions to pay for yet another extension through the end of the year.
Then in the fall, congressional leaders hope to move an overhaul of the tax code that would direct additional money to transportation. The details of such an effort remain uncertain, and anything that smells like a tax increase would face sharp conservative resistance.
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