Introducing legislation to tackle the nation’s infrastructure remains a top priority for a key Republican chairman, but the road is veering towards 2019 after the midterm elections when the GOP could lose control of Congress.
Rep. Bill Shuster, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, predicted that an infrastructure bill would be ready this summer. What he unveiled in July was a draft plan.
Calling it a “discussion draft,” Shuster, R-Pa., said the plan “does not represent a complete and final infrastructure bill,” but rather its purpose was to “reignite” discussions among his colleagues. “I urge all members to be open-minded and willing to work together in considering real solutions that will give America the modern day infrastructure it needs,” he added.
Shuster’s proposal calls for raising the gas tax by 15 cents per gallon and the diesel tax by 20 cents per gallon over the course of three years to bring in additional revenue to the Highway Trust Fund, which the Congressional Budget Office projects will become insolvent by 2020. The plan also would establish a Highway Trust Fund Commission, comprised of 15 members, to research the nation’s aging highway system. The commission would then determine how to preserve the trust fund’s solvency so the fuel taxes could be eventually be gutted by 2028.
A total of $3 billion over five years would be dedicated to a “national infrastructure investments program” and $3 billion annually for five years would go to the Clean Water State Revolving Funds.
President Trump has called for a massive infrastructure plan since the 2016 campaign. The White House released a blueprint in February for lawmakers that would allocate $200 billion in federal funding to spur a minimum of $1.3 trillion in infrastructure spending from state and local governments, in addition to the industry.
Since then, Trump and his administration have indicated that an infrastructure overhaul will likely have to wait until after the midterm elections in November.
According to Justin Harclerode, a spokesperson for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Shuster’s proposal was designed to move forward the discussion on how the U.S. is “going to address its long-term infrastructure needs in a sustainable way.”
“His proposal may not be the answer, and he encourages anyone with good ideas to bring them forward,” Harclerode told the Washington Examiner.
Although infrastructure remains a priority for Shuster during his remaining time in Congress — he announced earlier this year that he won’t seek re-election — he will also be focusing on progressing a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill and Water Resources Development Act, Harclerode said. Both pieces of legislation have passed in the House and are awaiting Senate approval.
“The chairman will continue to focus on infrastructure throughout the remainder of this Congress; there are other priorities that must be completed and are awaiting Senate action, including an FAA reauthorization and a Water Resources Development Act,” Harclerode said.
Shuster expressed similar sentiments, stressing that he won’t sit idly by for the remainder of his term. “Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to additional input from my Republican and Democratic colleagues in order to prepare a bill for congressional consideration,” Shuster said in a statement in July.
Experts agree that the proposal will spark conversations about infrastructure, but Tracy Miller, senior policy research editor at the Mercatus Center, was skeptical that infrastructure legislation would be rolled out in 2018. “I would say it’s doubtful that they’ll be able to do that,” Miller said. “This [proposal] opens the door for discussion, but whether they’ll actually produce legislation is more questionable.”
Next year “would be a good time to do it” in the event that infrastructure cannot make headway before the election due to “political concerns,” Miller added.
Joseph Kane, a senior research analyst and associate fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, said he believed the FAA reauthorization bill and the Water Resources Development Act will take precedence over a new infrastructure proposal. At the same time, Kane believes the proposal is “jump-starting another conversation that really needs to happen” about the gas tax and the Highway Trust Fund, and will provide “breadcrumbs to follow beyond the midterms.”
“If anything, this is providing a new sheen to thinking about these issues and then possibly what are some of the next steps in a collaborative fashion, a bipartisan fashion,” Kane said, who also predicted there will likely be more infrastructure proposals on Capitol Hill in the future.
Republican control of the legislative branch is up in the air this November. Should a “Blue Wave” occur, Democrats could take at back one or both chambers of Congress.
Like Republicans, Democrats have showed an appetite for addressing the issue, Kane said. Senate Democrats released a $1 trillion proposal in March that would allocate billions to fix roads and bridges, update water and sewage infrastructure, and advance airports. But interest in infrastructure wouldn’t necessarily translate to a national plan being released if Democrats regained control of Congress.
Shuster has said any infrastructure package must be bipartisan.
“It will be interesting I think to see what elements in this proposal could potentially be reappearing,” Kane said. “That will probably be the interesting thing to monitor — less where this proposal specifically goes as much as what elements or ingredients in this proposal will live on in future proposals and future conversations.”
