A contingent of Washington-area lawmakers and two Cabinet members called Monday for increased investment in U.S. infrastructure, foreshadowing a summer battle over transportation funding.
The lawmakers specifically called on Congress to take up a long-term fix to sufficiently fund the Highway Trust Fund, which receives funding from the federal gasoline tax and pays for roads and transportation.
“We need support from the federal government,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
Before its Memorial Day recess, Congress extended funding of the Highway Trust Fund for two months until July 31.
Lawmakers at Monday’s press conference said nationwide infrastructure is crumbling. Held near the Arlington Memorial Bridge outside D.C., lawmakers used the bridge as an example. Two lanes of the bridge, which connects Virginia and Washington, were closed indefinitely Friday as a result of structural corrosion.
“The current system is a broken as the bridge behind me,” said Virginia Democrat Rep. Don Beyer.
The bridge is a symbol of America’s neglect of investment into nationwide infrastructure, he said.
“Why can’t we be the investment leader?” Beyer asked.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx also lamented the state of America’s infrastructure, which he said is fading away inch by inch and beam by beam.
“We’re spending money by not making the investment now,” Foxx said. “Enough of this lack of investment and underinvestment.”
Repairs for the Arlington Memorial Bridge, maintained by the National Park Service, are estimated to cost about $250 million. The lawmakers at Monday’s press conference said any long-term funding for transportation infrastructure must place special emphasis on federally maintained roads and bridges. Under current law, the National Park Service is allocated $240 million per year for transportation projects.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s non-voting member of Congress, used the press conference to introduce a bill that would increase funding for the National Park Service.
The Save Our National Parks Transportation Bill would give $460 million annually for six years for federal transportation projects. Norton’s bill also would include a program to fund $150 million annually toward “significant federal lands,” which would include the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which connects Washington to Arlington National Cemetery.
“The Congress, which has repeatedly let funding run out for its own states allocations, has ignored altogether the roads and bridges for which it is solely responsible,” said Norton, the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s subcommittee on Highways and Transit.
Norton’s bill most likely will sit in the Republican-controlled Congress. Laura Loomis, deputy vice president of the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association, said the bill can serve as a “placeholder,” furthering debate on the issue.
Norton’s bill foreshadows what could be a nasty fight this summer when Congress must decide whether to once again patch up the Highway Trust Fund for a short period or pass a long-term transportation funding bill.
While Democrats have made more noise on long-term infrastructure funding, there has been bipartisan support on the issue, specifically in the House.
A bipartisan group of four members of Congress penned a letter to congressional leaders in February that called for a long-term, multi-year transportation infrastructure bill. The letter gathered more than 300 signatures from fellow House members.
“We are united in our conviction that now is the time to end the cycle of short-term extensions that kick the can down the road by doing the work needed to pass a multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill,” the letter read.
The letter offered support for the development of a “sustainable revenue source” that could fund transportation infrastructure.
Currently, most of the Highway Trust Fund is bankrolled by the federal gas tax, which at 18.3 cents-per-gallon is no longer enough to fund the trust. It hasn’t been raised since 1993, and Democrats and Republicans are at odds on how to shore up the fund.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said he wants a long-term, multi-year bill but is strongly opposed to raising the gas tax.
Earlier this year, the White House issued its own blueprint for transportation funding. It suggested raising taxes on offshore income of multinational corporations and using that revenue to fund the Highway Trust Fund. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said last month that the White House’s plan is a non-starter for the Senate leadership.
A long-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund hasn’t been enacted since 2005, when a six-year bill was passed. Since that funding expired in 2011, Congress has relied on short-term extensions.
Loomis speculated Monday that Boehner’s congressional ban of earmarks may also play a role in the lack of a long-term fix in the past few years. Without earmarks, she said, members of Congress are no longer incentivized by amendments added to bills that promise funding and infrastructure in their own districts.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also has speculated that earmarks have stunted transportation funding. The lack of earmarks “created a situation where you can’t get transportation bills passed, you can’t get highways funded,” Durbin said in 2013.
