In Wisconsin, the state's road system is propped up by massive multi-billion dollar funding streams that don't come from drivers. Cross-subsidies to transit are tiny by comparison. Source: SSTI

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Roads don’t pay for themselves.

But maybe they should.

The latest evidence comes from the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Along with the smart growth group 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, SSTI published a study in October [PDF] showing that “between 41 and 55 percent of [Wisconsin’s] road money comes from non-users.” In other words, roughly half of the money going toward the state’s road system doesn’t come from gas taxes, license fees, or any other contribution from drivers. Its highways are massively subsidized.

“Taxpayers cover costs that should be borne by road users,” asserts the SSTI. “Road subsidies push up tax rates, squeeze government services, and skew the market for transportation.”

Between 2004 and 2008, roads in the state cost an average of $4.24 billion annually. Of this, $1.74 billion came from revenue sources unrelated to road use—primarily property and sales taxes—while another $600 million was borrowed…

The fact is, roads constitute one of the biggest tax burdens we face.

“Non-users” fork over $779 per household for roads — as opposed to $50 for transit. But most drivers still believe that transit eats a huge chunk of transportation funding while roads are self-supporting. SSTI wanted to dispel that notion, said study author Bill Holloway.

“So much of the time, when you get into a conversation about transportation, people talk about the subsidy we provide to transit riders,” Holloway said. “Transit is a ‘subsidy’; highways and roads are ‘investments.’ But look at the tiny diversion from highway and road user fees that go to transit – it’s a drop in the bucket – and then realize that a huge portion of everything everyone buys goes to roads [through sales taxes].”

It’s not just Wisconsin – Policy Matters Ohio recently published its own version of the Wisconsin study [PDF], showing that in that state, drivers pay 60 percent of the cost for roads, with government subsidies picking up the tab for the remaining 40 percent. Still think transit is the big money suck?

“The 3-C interstate highway corridor from Cleveland through Columbus to Cincinnati cost 7.5 times more to build than the 3-C passenger rail corridor would have,” the group notes, “and requires 18 times the level of annual appropriations to keep the highway in good repair (more than $200 million annually).”

It’s reasonable for property and even sales taxes to pay for some local streets – after all, whether you drive or not, everybody uses local streets one way or another. But SSTI finds that the degree to which non-users are subsidizing roads goes far beyond what’s reasonable.

The Wisconsin study was released about a week after a controversy broke in the state over whether or not to increase tolling. SSTI realized it was a ripe moment to inject some realism into the conversation about how transportation is funded.

Wisconsin could fully fund its roads by raising the gas tax by about 50 cents per gallon or by imposing highway tolls, according to the study. But Governor Scott Walker is more interested in making sure the paltry amount drivers do spend to support the transportation system they use goes to roads and nothing but roads.

Walker (famous nationwide for returning high-speed rail money to the federal government and then asking for some of it back) has bought into the myth of the long-suffering driver subsidizing the freeloading transit user. He’s proposed barring driver user fees from being used for transit at all – a big gift to the highway lobby. Even the road-builders themselves are only seeking a guarantee in Wisconsin that road-user fees will be used only for transportation. They wouldn’t dare go as far as Walker and insist that they be used just for roads.

In addition to Ohio and Wisconsin, several other states are also compiling information on how much of their road costs are actually paid for by road users – Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota will be coming out with their reports soon. Others can find raw data on their states in the appendix of the SSTI report [PDF].

Earl Blumenauer takes the podium at Rail~Volution, while moderator Grace Crunican of BART, APTA President Bill Millar, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (not pictured) stand by. Photo by Clarence Eckerson, Jr.

“We should make some adjustments to a gas tax that hasn’t increased since 1993,” Blumenauer said. “Half the people think the gas tax goes up every year.”

He said he’d like to see it indexed to inflation:

In an ideal world, I would not raise the gas tax this year or next year. Come out of this recession, but put in place increases that are going to occur over the next 10 years; have that revenue stream. I would borrow against the revenue stream to take advantage of record low interest rates and a bidding climate like we’ve never seen, fund the president’s infrastructure bank to help move some of these forward, and work toward replacing the gas tax.

He reminded the audience that his state was the first to institute a gas tax, and now Oregon is working to get rid of it and replace it with a vehicle miles traveled fee.

Bill Millar, the outgoing president of the American Public Transit Association (“on Halloween, I turn into a pumpkin!”), said that before switching to a VMT fee, Congress needs to eliminate the federal guarantee, called “equity bonus,” that states will get back at least a certain percentage of what they pay in gas tax receipts. (The GAO recently found that every state actually gets back more than it puts in, thanks to infusions from the general fund, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of states from complaining that they don’t get their fair share.)

“States that encourage more travel get more money back [under the equity bonus system],” Millar said, “so we’ve got to break that cycle too, to make sure instead it’s an inverse relationship and states that give people more choice, more ways to travel, get more federal aid, not less federal aid.”

Over the weekend, the House and Senate decided to combine the long-overdue FAA reauthorization with the pending surface transportation bill, considering them together as one uniform transportation extension [PDF]. The FAA bill will be extended for four months, while SAFETEA-LU will be extended for six, with an expiration date of March 31.

As an added bonus, combining the bill with the FAA means that Congress can’t keep us in suspense until the last possible moment, as they’ve been prone to do lately. (Remember the debt ceiling? Remember the narrowly-averted government shutdown last spring?) The FAA extension expires September 16, so if Congress is to extend them together, they’ll have to act by the end of this week, instead of waiting till the end of next week, when they leave for another recess. The House is tentatively planning to vote on the bill tomorrow.

The extension is a clean one, with no changes in policy. That means bike/ped funding, which has been under threat over the last week, will remain for the next six months, at least. And the extension will be funded by the same 18.4 cent federal gas tax the U.S. has had since 1993, which was also due to expire September 30 and which is also renewed by this action.

The extension will stick to current funding levels, authorizing $24.78 billion in spending from the Highway Trust Fund for the first half of FY2012 (which begins October 1). That’s almost $19.8 billion for highways and $4.2 billion for transit.

That’s far more than the FY2012 budget just passed by the Transportation and HUD Appropriations subcommittee in the House, which agreed to $27.7 billion for highways and $5.2 billion for transit for the entire year. Although this extension can authorize more spending than that, actual spending levels are up to the appropriators, according to Jeff Davis at Transportation Weekly. Experts say that at this level, most of the money would go to pay states back for projects already built, and new highway project funding could be cut by as much as 75 percent.

But higher spending levels also have their down side. “Maintaining current highway and transit spending levels for any period of time deepens the Highway Trust Fund’s revenue hole,” writes Jeff Davis, noting that according to the CBO, “the Highway Account of the Trust Fund will run out of cash at these spending levels in the first few months of calendar year 2013, with the Mass Transit Account running dry a year or so behind that).”

Davis also notes that “bringing the extension bill to a vote in the House will require the House to vote to waive the budget totals in the Ryan budget plan, which will likely bring some opposition from conservative Republicans.”

The extension bill the EPW Committee passed last week included a $3.13 billion rescission, meaning that even though it provided $43 billion, more than $3 billion of that would need to be returned by the states. This new extension bill takes that “rescission” out of the total up front, lowering the $43 billion to just under $40 billion for the year.

Senator Boxer has raised an objection to the $3 billion cut, even though the front-end budget cut isn’t much different from her own back-end rescission. Davis speculates that this is because the EPW two-year bill seeks to hold current spending levels, but if current spending levels are lowered in this way, the EPW bill would actually represent an increase.

In Boxer’s statement, she also expressed her pleasure that the House is moving forward with an extension with current spending levels, which is what she has supported for both the extension and the full reauthorizations. “The original House proposal would have cut spending by more than 30 percent, which would threaten hundreds of thousands of construction workers’ jobs and thousands of businesses,” she said.

She also said she welcomes the longer extension “because it gives more certainty to the private sector and to states and local governments in their plans for road and transportation projects.”

However, pushing the expiration so far into next year makes it even more likely it will be followed by nothing but another extension, not an actual reauthorization. Both parties will be loath to pass a big spending bill so close to a presidential election.

Grover Norquist wasn't content to just bring us to the brink of default. Photo by Gage Skidmore

A few weeks ago, Ben Smith at Politico mentioned in a short post that the gas tax was expiring September 30. If not extended, all but 4.3 cents of the 18.4-cent federal gas tax would disappear. Extending the gas tax has always been an easy, bipartisan move that happened more or less automatically. (Raising it to a reasonable level is another story entirely.)

When Smith first wrote about the gas tax expiration, it was the first some had heard of the issue. Others were monitoring it cautiously, just in case the Tea Party or other antitax crusaders decided to kick up a stir. But media reports confirm that those forces are preparing for battle.

House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica has proposed a bill based on the current gas tax, and his office has confirmed that he supports keeping it at 18.4 cents. But according to Platts news service, Republican members on key committees are “still deciding what to do about the federal gasoline tax.”

The demigod of the tax-haters, Grover Norquist, has decided to take up the banner, after enough news organizations asked if he was going to. “ATR will be urging people to look at ending the federal gas tax either cold turkey or phasing it out as soon as possible and allowing states to simply go raise their own taxes, rather than send the money to Washington and get it back with strings,” Norquist told Platts in an email.

Even other right-wing small-government types part company with Norquist there. Politico quotes Heritage Foundation and Reason Foundation experts as saying the gas tax “has to” be renewed and that a “cold turkey” end to the gas tax, as Norquist appears to be pondering, would be “chaotic.”

That seems to be fine by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) of “You lie!” fame. (Chaos is sort of his thing.) His local TV network, WJBF, quotes Wilson as questioning the federal gas tax. “Sadly, it has been used in large cities to subside a transportation system, the subway systems of New York, Chicago, San Francisco. We need to look at this carefully. And, I believe the money should be spent where it is raised and that is by the drivers of Georgia and South Carolina.”

Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio doesn’t put it past the GOP to play politics with the most basic funding mechanism of our already-crumbling transportation system. “The Republicans will use the expiration of the program and the tax… for some sort of leverage or further blackmail,” said DeFazio, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. “If the ultra-right prevails, it has already been rumored they would end the gas tax, which would mean no more surface transportation trust fund.”

Gas tax receipts are up this year, according to the FHWA, generating about $22 billion so far in fiscal 2011, compared to a total $32 billion for all of FY 2010, says Platts. Gas taxes make up 90 percent of the balance of the Highway Trust Fund.

Meanwhile, Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Tom Coburn, as well as Reps. Jeff Flake and James Lankford, have introduced separate bills to drastically alter the way gas taxes are collected and distributed. They would rather a system more to the liking of Rep. Wilson, with states keeping their own gas tax money and spending it as they see fit, rather than sending it to Washington and then getting it back.

“Donor” states complain when they don’t get back as much as they sent. Indeed, Wilson’s home state only got back 85 cents on the dollar in 2009. But that money wasn’t primarily going to New York and San Francisco. Alaska was raking in $3.70 for every dollar it shelled out. Montana and North Dakota also took back more than twice what they sent. (That information is from the Heritage Foundation, by the way [PDF].)

Of course, asking states to take on more of the burden for raising transportation revenues might assuage some small-government types, but asking a bunch of cash-strapped states to take this on in the middle of a recession is rough stuff. And it’ll just turn states into the next battleground for tax foes.

The same argument even Democrats use to justify not raising the gas tax is the same argument some will wield in defending the idea of repealing it altogether. Doug Heye, former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, told Politico that gas prices are “really affecting families. If you have to drive 20 miles to work every day, those are real costs.” He predicted that “there will be Republicans who will be resistant” to renewing the tax.

As CNNMoney said at the beginning of its story on the brewing fight, “You may want to consider investing in some good shock absorbers for your car this fall.” (Make that “knobby tires for your bike,” Streetsbloggers.) After all, if gas tax receipts fall, road maintenance – already miserably underfunded – will suffer even more.

GW CEO Dan Akerson wants the gas tax raised. Photo: The Detroit Bureau

Akerson told The Detroit News that, rather than have the government incrementally increase fuel efficiency standards over the next several years, “You know what I’d rather have them do — this will make my Republican friends puke — as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas.”

“People will start buying more Cruzes and they will start buying less Suburbans,” he said.

Akerson isn’t the first representative of a major U.S. automaker to come out in favor of a higher gas tax. Two years ago, as the automakers were being rescued from collapse by the U.S. government, Bill Ford, CEO of Ford, complained that demand shifted with gas prices.
“As a manufacturer, we don’t like that,” Ford said at a business conference. “Our ability to forecast has been just horrible,” said Ford. “If gas prices are gyrating wildly, we have no idea whether we’re planning right. We’d much rather have a fairly predictable level to shoot for in gas prices. That’s why I think a gas tax would work for us.”

Chrysler’s response to high gas prices in 2008 was quite the opposite – the company offered a guarantee of $3/gallon gas for three years for car buyers. Lee Iacocca championed a hike in the late eighties, before the last gas tax increase, but the company isn’t on record currently as supporting a raise.

The construction industry is a vocal supporter of an increase, since low revenues have hamstrung new development. Indeed, it’s hard to find anyone outside of Washington these days that doesn’t see the obvious need to raise the gas tax, which hasn’t been increased since 1993, when gas was just over a dollar a gallon.

“This is about survival,” said MoDOT spokesman Jorma Duran. “This is about making sure our roads and bridges continue to be maintained and operable.”

Drastic times call for drastic measures. And outdated gas tax rates, state operating shortfalls and a lack of forethought are combining to create a crisis for state DOTs in Missouri and beyond. In the last two years, Virginia DOT let go of 1,000 employees and New York DOT eliminated 100 positions.

The Virginia Department of Transportation made 1,000 layoffs in 2009, the biggest reduction in the history of the agency. Photo: Richmond Times-Dispatch

“We just ran out of money,” Reta Busher, VDOT’s chief financial officer, told the Richmond Times Dispatch.

State transportation agencies are adjusting to a “new reality,” said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. And there will be widely felt impacts.

“It’s terrible,” he said. “Because of these economic crises, you’ll see projects put off. States will not do as much as they recognize is absolutely essential.” Horsley said the most vulnerable employees are rural maintenance crews. And those job losses are likely to have a painful ripple effect across already recession-battered states, he said.

“If you go to rural Missouri and just about any rural place, the state maintenance facility is one of the most important employers,” Horsley said. “That’s a real blow to rural economies all over Missouri. Those paychecks were very important to those regions.”

How did states get into this mess? Well, stagnant gas taxes are a big part of it. States depend on gas taxes — federal and their own — for an average of 24 percent of their budgets, according to Smart Growth America. But since the gas tax was last raised in 1993, inflation and greater fuel efficiency have greatly diminished its purchasing power. In addition, many states have not had the political gumption to take on gas tax hikes themselves (Georgia and Connecticut being a few notable exceptions).

Rising fuel prices have also forced gas tax receipts downward, as consumers curb nonessential driving. Where in headier times, states might have subsidized their transportation agencies out of the general fund, few states are in the financial position to do so at the current time.

To make matters worse, many states have been pouring their increasingly scarce transportation resources into projects of dubious merit.

According to a report by the Brookings Institution, states do a poor job ensuring their transportation investments are strategically targeted to aid economic growth. Transportation investments are not properly coordinated with land use considerations. States were also found to be underinvesting in maintenance, a recipe for long-term financial disaster.

“States face challenges because they spend their (now-declining) transportation dollars poorly,” the report noted. “By failing to join up transportation up with other policy areas—such as housing, land use, energy—states are diminishing the power of their interventions and reducing the return on their investments.”

Missouri has been spending about $1.2 billion annually on highway construction. In the new economic reality, MoDOT’s budget will be reduced to about $600 million annually. The cuts will leave the agency with just enough money to maintain its current system and meet its required federal match — 20 percent of the project costs, said Duran.

Part of the reason for the sudden flurry of job cuts in Missouri was the expiration of a bond-funded surge in transportation funding beginning in 2004. In a report called “Falling Off a Cliff” [PDF], MoDOT noted that declining state revenues and increased construction costs were part of the problem, as well.

These same problems are plaguing DOTs across the country. It’s difficult to know where the next shoe will drop. Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray told members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in February that without an increase in revenues “We will not be able to match federal funds; we will have a difficult time maintaining our existing system.” According to some reports, New Jersey seems to be headed in the same direction.

If environmental and social justifications for pursuing smart growth strategies haven’t been enough to encourage states to change course, maybe a fiscal mandate will.

But at least in Missouri, the funding crisis means that new construction is off the table, Duran said. Pedestrians and cyclists will be among the biggest losers as the state reverts from construction to maintenance mode, said Brent Hugh, of the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation.

“The last thing we need is a lot of new roads and big freeways in Missouri,” Hugh said. “But we need to maintain what we have. We need to add bike lanes and sidewalks.”

Adriano Espaillat voted for a gas tax holiday -- which won't even help lower costs at the pump -- on the dime of the 70 percent of his constituents who don't own a car. Photo: Chu for Daily News

The New York State Senate voted for a “gas tax holiday” yesterday, moving to eliminate the three state taxes on fuel for the busy Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day weekends this year. The estimated loss of revenue would be $60 million.

The 48 state senators who voted for the gas tax holiday wanted to ensure that drivers didn’t have to pay for the environmental and social costs of their actions — a misguided enough goal — but their desperate attempt to pander wouldn’t even have been a success on those grounds.

As economists from across the political spectrum have stated, a summertime gas tax holiday wouldn’t reduce the price at the pump. Oil companies would charge the same rate and pocket the difference. The libertarian Cato Institute, no friend of taxes, called gas tax holidays a “holiday from reality” in 2008. If we really must pander to motorists, surely we can all agree that New Yorkers deserve better panderers.

Those state senators, however, are savvy politicos. They can’t deliver the goods, but they know their audience. That’s where the gas tax vote is especially revealing.

Even if a gas tax holiday worked as promised, reducing the price at the pump instead of increasing Exxon’s profit margins, it’s a sure thing where the money comes from: the state’s transportation budget. If the gas tax holiday costs $60 million, that’s $60 million in new revenues needed for the MTA and state DOT, or $60 million more in cuts to things like education. While only drivers would even theoretically benefit, everyone else would pay the price.

Voting for a gas tax holiday means you’re worried about appeasing drivers in your district and not too concerned with sending everybody else the bill. That’s probably good politics if you’re Patrick Gallivan, the Western New York senator whose district has a 96 percent car ownership rate according to Streetsblog’s analysis of Census data. More outrageous is the fact that many New York City senators seem to agree.

The worst offender is new Upper Manhattan rep Adriano Espaillat. He voted for the gas tax holiday even though 70 percent of households in his district do not own a car. He thinks all of them need to pay to keep things easier for the other, wealthier, 30 percent. Almost as galling are the yes votes from Senate Transportation Committee chair Martin Dilan (whose district is 66 percent car-free), Ruben Diaz, Sr. (63 percent car free) and Eric Adams (62 percent car-free). Adams and Bronx Senator Jeff Klein had floated a similar idea in 2008, proposing to suspend tolls on bridges and tunnels while giving drivers a “gas tax rebate.”

Now that such a shameless pander has actually come up for a vote, kudos are due to Shirley Huntley, Toby Ann Stavisky and Diane Savino, the only three senators who voted against the gas tax holiday despite having a majority car-owning district. You can see the full, short list of senators who voted against handing the oil companies extra millions in the roll call.

Luckily, there is no indication that the Republican-sponsored plan is going anywhere in the State Assembly.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) listens to mayors' concerns about federal funding for transportation. Photo: Alan Spearman / Commercial Appeal

After a meeting with mayors in his home state of Tennessee, where he listened as area mayors expressed concerns about the federal budget, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said, “State and local governments will have to decide whether to have an increase in the gasoline tax.” He delivered the bitter news to the mayors that they may be getting even less money from the federal government over the next few years.

For many Republicans, that’s just as it should be. They think the federal bureaucracy is too big and more government functions should be left to the states. Alexander said that when he was governor in the eighties, he was able to fund and complete several state road projects without federal dollars.

But the mayors he spoke to were concerned. According to the Commercial Appeal, they explained that most transportation projects get 80 percent of their funding from the feds with just a 20 percent local match. They count on those federal dollars.

Alexander didn’t specify how much the state should raise the gas tax, but he indicated that tourists and truckers would “pay for a big share of it,” perhaps as a way to help local politicians sell the idea of a higher state gas tax to constituents.

Tennessee has one of the lowest gas tax rates in the country, taking into consideration the fact that sales tax is exempted on gasoline. The state gas tax is 15 cents a gallon (on top of the federal levy of 18.4 cents) but drivers essentially get back two-thirds of that cost (10 cents) since gas is exempt from sales tax. Tennessee dedicates its entire gas tax to highway-building.

Mayor Stan Joyner of Collierville, a Memphis suburb, told the Commercial Appeal he didn’t see a state gas tax hike as a solution to the funding problem. “Jiminy Christmas,” he said. “Gas is high enough and is taxed enough… If there are cuts or if they [federal officials] keep more, it puts a greater burden on us. It means we have an aging infrastructure with no funds to do anything about it.”

Donna Cooper, former secretary for policy under Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, says state gas tax increases may be warranted in states that have not been able to meet local road repair needs. “But they should not be substitutes for the continued federal role,” she said, “in collecting gas taxes sufficient to ensure that our interstate highway system and transit systems are in good repair and have sufficient capacity to meet America’s transportation needs.”

Gas prices are up to $3.23 a gallon this week, according to AAA. But before drivers complain about “pain at the pump,” they should compare U.S. gas prices to those in the rest of the developed world. A liter of gas costs about 80 cents. A liter of Fiji bottled water costs about $4.00.

According to Ryan Avent at the Economist, the low prices are “almost entirely due to the rock bottom level” of gas tax rates in the U.S. Avent goes on:

The low cost of petrol encourages greater dependence; the average American uses much more oil per day than other rich world citizens. This dependence also impacts infrastructure investment choices, leading to substantially more spending on highways than transit alternatives. And this, in turn, reduces the ability of American households to substitute away from driving when oil prices rise.

The gas tax brings in far less than it did back in 1993, the last time it was raised, because of greater fuel economy in cars. And it’s a set price and not indexed to gas prices (which are three times higher than they were in 1993).

Avent concludes, “It’s hard to take any fiscal hawk seriously so long as this measure isn’t on the table. It’s as close to a win-win solution as one is likely to find.”

The idea may be finally gaining traction. Everyone from the deficit commission to some U.S. Senators are warming to the notion that a gas tax hike is the best way to pay for the ambitious transportation agenda that President Obama laid out and finally address some of the country’s backlogged infrastructure needs. The administration’s entire six-year, $556 billion proposal could be paid for by roughly doubling the federal gas tax. (Bringing it up to 39.3 cents a gallon for regular gas and 52.2 cents for diesel would be sufficient, according to our back-of-the-envelope calculation.) And it would still be puny compared to other developed nations.

Business Insider magazine has an editorial today called, “It’s Time For a Gas Tax.” Tom Friedman proposed a one-dollar gas tax hike in the New York Times this week. Indeed, you could add a dollar to our gas tax and gas would still be a bargain compared to some countries. But it could be just enough to encourage more sensible transportation options.

At an EPW hearing last month, a witness told Senators that to visualize the number of unemployed construction workers, they should picture the Dallas Cowboys stadium, which seats 100,000 people -- times 20. That point hit home with Sen. Boxer. Today, she helped her fellow Senators with the visual. Photo courtesy of the Senate EPW Committee.

Against all odds, in a time of high unemployment and Republican attacks on spending, momentum may finally be building for a gas tax increase.

Business and labor came together to make a rare show of unity today to push for a robust transportation reauthorization with adequate investment for infrastructure. And they spoke out loud and clear for a higher gas tax. Most surprising of all – it seemed that Senators were finally ready to have a mature discussion about it.

The gas tax has been a third rail issue lately. While finance and infrastructure experts roundly agree on the need to raise the tax – which hasn’t been increased since 1993 and whose purchasing power has been gutted by inflation and improved fuel efficiency – politicians have been unwilling to get behind a tax hike during a down economy.

Enter Tom Donohue and Richard Trumka, two towering figures in U.S. economic life. Donohue, the cantankerous chief of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Trumka, the man’s man who heads the AFL-CIO, don’t agree on much. In fact, a favorite joke of today’s Senate hearing, where the two appeared together, centered on the strange-bedfellow nature of their joint push for infrastructure investment.

“The fact that Tom Donohue and I appear before you today does not mean that hell has frozen over or unicorns are now roaming the land,” Trumka joked in his opening statement at the Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. Delaware Democrat Tom Carper interjected, “When I walked up here from the train station this morning I did see a pig fly overhead.”

Carper noted that he was one of the only people on the Hill willing to support a modest increase in the gas tax to pay for infrastructure and deficit reduction. He has suggested raising it a penny a month for 25 months. The deficit commission has moderated that proposal, recommending a penny a quarter for three and a half years (resulting in a 15-cent increase), with all of the revenues going to infrastructure.

Think about it – a 15-cent increase in three and a half years. I’ve seen three and a half months where we’ve seen gas prices go up – or down – by that much. I’ve seen three and a half weeks – and we all have – where they’ve gone up by that much. So I would ask you, in spirit of ‘the things worth having are worth paying for,’ to keep that in mind and help find a way to make this acceptable to the folks in our country.

Rich Trumka agreed. He said all funding and financing options should be on the table, from a stronger TIFIA loan program to a reauthorization of the Build America Bonds to an infrastructure bank. He proposed a half-cent tax on financial transactions, saying Wall Street created a mess that taxpayers are still paying for. (He and Donohue part ways on this particular recommendation.)

But in the end, Trumka said none of that will generate the robust funding at the level that’s needed.

We must rely on and boost our user fee revenue streams, a key component in addressing our huge infrastructure deficit. The gas tax has not been raised since 1993. It provides diminishing levels of funding and should be raised. Other forms of user fee funding mechanisms such as creating a user fee based on vehicle miles traveled have been discussed.

He cautioned that user fees can “have an unfair and disproportionate impact on working people if not properly designed” and threw in a pitch for collective bargaining rights, saying that when people earn a decent living they don’t “squeak” at paying a higher gas tax.

And Trumka also noted that federal investment was key because, despite all the talk of public-private partnerships, especially by House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica, “Private capital has never and will never adequately invest in public infrastructure because private investors cannot capture the economic gains that infrastructure creates.”

Well, sure, you might be thinking – the tax-and-spend liberals in the AFL-CIO might get behind a gas tax but the big-business conservatives of the Chamber of Commerce will never go for it, right? Wrong.

“We’ve been doing this since Dwight Eisenhower,” Donohue said. “If you’ve got another way, I’m glad to hear about it. I haven’t seen it.”

Donohue was president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations for 13 years. He says back then, California truckers resented paying a user fee that would be used to build roads in Nevada, but he told them, “you have to build roads in Las Vegas or you’ll never get out of California.” These days, truckers are begging for a hike in the diesel tax if it would mean that the country would repair its roads and reduce traffic.

The brainstorm continued. Sen. Barbara Boxer asked about a fee on shipping containers entering the country at customs. Donohue shot that one down as fast as he shot down the financial transaction fee idea, saying exporters would find ways around the fee and might slap a tariff on U.S. goods in retaliation.

That left Boxer with the stone-cold realization that the answer, really, was the gas tax. Yes, Donohue said. It’s just common sense, “recognizing that you’re collecting half of what you used to.” Boxer added that people driving electric cars aren’t paying anything for the roads, and started mulling the VMT fee.

“I don’t like the idea of putting some ‘spy thing’ in people’s cars,” Boxer said. “I would do it on an honest basis where every year you pay registration and you pay a fee for vehicle miles traveled.” And she echoed Donohue’s point, which she admitted she hadn’t thought about before, that “we have system in place and to create new system is controversial and we don’t know the consequences.”

The hearing involved some of the usual bickering over bike lanes and transit – the “hitchhikers” onto a Highway Trust Fund intended just for highways, to hear Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) tell it. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) reminded him that public transportation investment actually creates more jobs than roads and attracts development near transit stops.

Trumka and Donohue refused to get dragged into that debate, asserting that roads and rails are both necessary to create jobs, reduce congestion, and build a 21^st century infrastructure.

Since 1947, American highways have run up a deficit bigger than $600 billion, in 2005 dollars. Source: U.S. PIRG

You’ve heard it a thousand times from the highway lobby: Roads pay for themselves through “user fees” — a.k.a. gas taxes and tolls — whereas transit is a drain on the taxpayer. They use this argument to push for new roads, instead of transit, as fiscally prudent investments.

The myth of the self-financed road meets its match today in the form of a new report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group: “Do Roads Pay For Themselves?” The answer is a resounding “no.” All told, the authors calculate that road construction has sucked $600 billion out of America’s public purse since the dawn of the interstate system.

The Myth of the User Fee

First, let’s dispense with the idea that the gas tax – the primary source of financing for federal transportation projects – is a user fee.

“If you go to a state park and pay the fee to get in there, that’s a user fee,” report author Dan Smith, U.S. PIRG’s transportation associate, told Streetsblog. “If you’re driving down the road and you have to pay the toll for driving on that specific road, that’s a user fee.”

But people also pay gas taxes to fill up their lawnmowers. And those lawnmowers don’t usually end up on the highway. Just because you fill your tank doesn’t mean you ever drive on the roads funded by the gas tax you pay.

The Catch-22

Then there’s the huge contradiction underpinning the core arguments for highway expansion. Do new roads cut congestion, or do they “pay for themselves”? Highway lobbyists try to have it both ways, but the truth is that neither of these propositions hold water.

Highway expansions are often justified as projects that relieve traffic and, believe it or not, reduce pollution. So if a highway widening achieved its stated aims, it would cut congestion and fuel consumption, which would mean fewer gas tax dollars and roads that don’t pay for even a fraction of their construction costs. However, we know that new highway capacity doesn’t actually reduce driving – it induces more driving.

The additional traffic created by expanding highways does generate more gas tax revenue, but still not enough to come close to covering the costs of new roads.

U.S. PIRG cites the Pew Charitable Trusts’ SubsidyScope project, which found that “user fees paid for only 51 percent of highway costs, down 10 percent over the course of a single decade.”

Even if gas taxes were the direct user payment they’re made out to be, no one seems to have much appetite for making sure they actually pay for the infrastructure needs in this country. Gas taxes haven’t risen to accommodate more fuel efficient cars or even for plain old inflation. Nor have they compensated for the fact that driving is declining, meaning less gas consumption (but, puzzlingly, not less road-building).

The federal gas tax hasn’t gone up since 1993.

The Highway Funding System as a Subsidy for Driving

The argument that drivers pay for roads might be somewhat more credible if they weren’t taking money away from other public funding streams. Gasoline is exempt from sales taxes in 37 states and the District of Columbia. So rather than paying into the general revenues for the state, motorists are paying into an already narrowly prescribed pot of funding, which highway advocates want to see prescribed even more narrowly to exclude transit and bike/pedestrian projects.

In New Jersey, the savings on the sales tax exceeds the gas tax drivers have to pay. In that way, the government actually provides a financial incentive to purchase gas and drive. And since gas taxes are fixed and sales taxes are percentages of the purchase price, more and more states could end up with this perverse subsidy as gas prices rise.

Photo: Sound Eco Adventures

What About Tolls?

Tolls are, indeed, an honest-to-goodness user fee, charging drivers directly for the road they’re driving on. But the overwhelming majority of roads are not funded by tolls. Local streets don’t have tolls. Rural highways don’t often have them. And tolls don’t come close to covering the costs of roads. According to U.S. PIRG, “In the 1950s, experts estimated that no more than 9,000 miles of highway (compared with the more than 3 million miles of highway in existence at that time) could support themselves with tolls.”

Founding Fathers

The report goes into ancient history (the Hoover administration), investigating the original intent of the gas tax at both the state and federal levels, and debunking the myth that they were always intended to pay only for highways. Indeed, federal gas taxes originated in the 1930s and were dedicated exclusively for highways only for a 17-year period, starting in 1956, covering the construction of the interstate highway system. Since 1973, the gas tax has been used for a variety of transportation programs and has even been used, on occasion, to pay down the deficit.

External Costs

And now the obvious: You can’t measure all the costs of driving with the price of asphalt. The U.S. PIRG report gives a laundry list of external costs associated with driving, including:

Photo:ret0dd/Flickr

• Changes in the risk of accidents, including injuries to non-drivers and damages to property.
• Environmental and public health impacts, including smog, greenhouse gases, water pollution from highway runoff, and the impacts on wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts.
• National security and economic implications of protecting access to foreign oil.
• Increased pressure on those without cars.
• Quality of life and the impact of roads on active transportation, such as walking and biking.
• Car-centric development patterns, sprawl, and the resulting infrastructure costs for the expansion of water, sewer, and other services.

The report cites one study that finds that, just to pay for roads, user fees need to be 20 to 70 cents higher, and another study that finds that, to pay for external costs like these, we’d have to add another $2.10 a gallon.

The Cost of the Myths

“Road advocates use these myths about the gas tax being this user fee and that highways pay for themselves to get preferential treatment, and to get a larger chunk of the dedicated fund,” says Smith of U.S. PIRG. “Advocates of any type of policy would like a dedicated fund, because it is a stable source of funding.”

The myths associated with road financing put all other forms of transportation at a disadvantage, said Smith. “Conservatives say all other transit is social policy and should come from the general fund.”

With a Republican majority in the House, the myth that roads pay for themselves will be again be enlisted to prioritize highways over transit, as the GOP begins shaping a transportation agenda around “getting back to basics” and cutting spending, especially for transit.

“We want to make sure that those falsehoods are not a part of this debate,” said Smith. “People will think twice before saying roads pay for themselves when the numbers say they don’t.”

With incoming Transportation Chair John Mica refusing a gas tax increase, reformers can still make progress in the next two years. Image: Orlando Sentinel

The House recently approved a sixth extension of the current transportation law, this one lasting for nine months. Incoming Chair John Mica (R-FL) says he wants to work on a new six-year reauthorization, but there’s no reason to believe it’ll proceed smoothly without a robust financing mechanism in place. For now, lawmakers can’t agree on a way to stabilize the highway trust fund and adequately finance transportation.

If a long-term reauthorization proves impossible, Puentes argues for a deficit-neutral, short-term reauthorization rather than continue with endless extensions. He calls it SAFETEA-TWO.

Why a two-year bill? For one thing, it’s hard for construction projects to move forward with certainty under these short-term, temporary extensions. Contractors and states are timid about undertaking ambitious projects when the future of federal funding isn’t firm.

Another reason boils down to timing. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) introduced his reauthorization bill to great fanfare in June 2009, but there was no agreement on a funding mechanism, as lawmakers refused to get behind a gas tax increase. They haven’t made any progress on that yet. Puentes hopes that in two years, with the 2012 presidential campaign season behind us and, one hopes, a stronger economy, a gas tax increase might gain traction.

So what can transportation advocates do in the next two years? And what can a SAFETEA-TWO accomplish? Here’s what Puentes recommends:

• Model a new evaluation system for project proposals on TIGER, basing awards on merit and performance metrics. Add more transparency and specificity to the process. Make TIGER and the High Speed Rail program permanent.
• Start transitioning from the gas tax to a more direct user fee system, like a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee. Support “aggressive research” and development, especially to address concerns about privacy and administering a mileage fee. These issues will take time to iron out, and the next two years are a perfect time to do that work.
• Invest in a strategic framework for multimodal freight movement.
• Establish a national policy for road pricing, including “standard tolling, variable pricing, high occupancy toll lanes, cordon and area-wide schemes.” Remove “archaic” restrictions on interstate tolling and utilitze state-of-the-art toll collection technologies.
• “Help those that help themselves.” Offer federal incentives to encourage local self-financing, as we’ve seen where taxpayers have voted to pay higher taxes to pay for transit improvements.
• Strengthen coordination among financing tools like TIFIA and private activity bonds to ease the process for applicants and embrace more complex and ambitious projects. A unified infrastructure financing system could also set the stage for the transition to a National Infrastructure Bank.
• Expand the use of Public-Private Partnerships with a governmental office designed, not to make decisions about PPP projects, but to provide quality control and technical advice.
• Work on reducing construction delays by instituting rewards for on-time project delivery and forgoing unnecessary environmental reviews (but keeping the necessary ones).
• Allow greater use of federal funds for rail maintenance to address concerns like those expressed by anti-rail politicians in Ohio and Wisconsin about state financial burdens.
• Cut some “legacy” programs, like the half-billion-dollar Appalachian Development Highway System Program, that are redundant with other federal agencies.

Puentes says these interim reforms could pave the way for an ambitious, six-year reauthorization when the political and economic stars are in better alignment than they are now. It’s a roadmap for action at a time when many reformers are throwing up their hands in despair, wondering what can possibly be achieved in the current climate.

Sorry, but under the deficit commission's recommendations, your vacation home may no longer be eligible for a mortgage interest deduction.

The report has plenty to make anyone squirm. As co-chair Alan Simpson said when he and co-chair Erskine Bowles released their co-chairs’ report last month, “We have harpooned every whale in the ocean and some of the minnows.”

Once unthinkable, even defense spending is recommended for massive cuts. Meanwhile, the rich would be in line for even bigger tax cuts than they’ve been enjoying these last few years.

Smart-growth advocates are most interested in the report’s recommendations on transportation funding and mortgage deductions. We reported last month that the co-chairs’ initial report floated the idea of eliminating the mortgage-interest deduction entirely. That would promote more compact and sustainable development by discouraging people from buying “as much house as they can,” but it would also cause significant pain for a lot of middle-income homeowners who calculated their domestic budgets based on that tax credit.

The full commission’s report took the middle ground: lowering the deduction cap for expensive primary homes and eliminating it entirely for second homes. Action like that would be a positive way to dis-incentivize irresponsible growth, given the sprawling nature of so many people’s “country” homes, not to mention the obvious disproportionate number of wealthy people affected by that provision.

The commission also tackled transportation reform, saying, “Before asking taxpayers to pay more for roads, rail, bridges, and infrastructure, we must ensure existing funds are not wasted. The Commission recommends significant reforms to control federal highway spending.”

It suggests whipping the Highway Trust Fund into shape and keeping it from hemorrhaging money. How? By imposing a 15-cent gas tax hike, for one thing. (Somehow, all these proposals for fiscal sanity just keep coming back to that inevitable conclusion.) And they want to inject more discipline and accountability into highway spending policy.

And finally, that greatest of political lightning rods: eliminating all Congressional earmarks. Though, as has been repeated over and over in the current debate, earmarks account for less than half of one percent of the federal budget, the commission clearly sees it as a symbol of the restoration of fiscal discipline.

The commission isn’t unanimous in its support for the recommendations in the report, which could mean delays in a Congressional vote on them. Meanwhile, Transportation for America has issued a call for the commission to stay strong in its support for a gas tax increase and to urge Congress to condition “any increase in revenue on a rewrite of a long term federal transportation bill.”

Another push for a higher gas tax will be met by yet another pushback by anti-tax policymakers. Photo: Pop and Politics

The three groups have come together in a coalition they’re calling Our Fiscal Security to release a new report, Investing in America’s Economy: A Budget Blueprint for Economic Recovery and Fiscal Responsibility. In it, they throw their support behind a gas tax proposal made last year by the Congressional Budget Office [PDF].

Here’s what Demos, et al. have to say about it:

Increasing taxes on motor fuels would raise significant revenues while decreasing negative social externalities such as pollution and traffic congestion. Revenue from the tax would recapitalize the highway trust fund, thereby providing badly needed funding for transportation infrastructure.

Including state and local taxes, CBO estimates that the average national tax rate per gallon of fuel is 40.3 cents on gasoline and 46.6 cents on diesel. CBO projects that raising federal fuel excise taxes by 25 cents a gallon would generate $305.1 billion over 2010-19… Raising federal fuel excise taxes by 50 cents a gallon, for example, would generate $604.8 billion over 2010-19 (CBO 2009).

Even better, their priority for the revenue is mass transit. They say transit reduces emissions and improves access for the poor.

Investing funds into a modern, interconnected, and affordable public transit system could both reduce our dependency on fuel and increase productivity by reducing the amount of time people sit in traffic. Investment in repairing existing roads and building new and modern public transit systems could also create a significant number of jobs.

Which brings us back to the question of how to fund these critical improvements… which brings us back to the gas tax. How many economists need to get behind this idea before politicians are willing to consider it?

The “Our Fiscal Security” gang is promoting a gas tax increase as just one tiny plank in a wide-ranging, comprehensive platform to achieve “fiscal responsibility without undermining our national strength.” That sounds like something we can all agree on, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, as the lame duck session takes up where they left off for the Thanksgiving recess, lawmakers are trying to outdo each other at deficit-busting fiscal conservatism. But when it comes to raising revenues, they’re as anti-tax as they’ve ever been.

Are their constituents really ready to let investment in infrastructure wither away? If not, Capitol Hill politicians are going to have to face the music sooner or later and find a new way to pay for essential projects – or else keep on spending our grandkids’ money.

Gradually increase gas tax to fund transportation spending

• Raise gas tax gradually by 15 cents beginning in 2013
• Dedicate funds toward fully funding the transportation trust funds and therefore eliminating the need for further general fund bailouts

Raise the gas tax, cut the deficit. Image from Utanito via Treehugger

Well, that’s clear enough. Highways cost money. You gotta pay to pave, and Americans aren’t paying.

Bloomberg quotes leaders on both sides of the aisle who lambasted the report. “Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the targeting of Social Security and Medicare ‘simply unacceptable,’ and Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas expressed opposition to proposals to raise taxes.” Everyone from AARP to the AFL-CIO lined up to slam the plan.

The co-chairs of the Commission even joke about the unpopularity of their proposals. “We have harpooned every whale in the ocean and some of the minnows,” said Republican former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson. Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, joked that they’d have to enter a “witness protection program.”

They also proposed eliminating the tax deduction for mortgage interest payments – or at least restricting the tax breaks so that second homes, expensive homes, and home equity loans weren’t eligible.

The mortgage tax break is a sprawl-inducer, encouraging people to buy “more house” for their money. Besides, home ownership rates are higher in the suburbs, since urbanites are more likely to rent. By removing the tax break, as the deficit commission recommends, they would require people to pay the full cost of the house they buy – and stop subsidizing the choice to live in the suburbs instead of cities.

Which brings us back to the gas tax. Politicians cower when drivers complain about paying more at the pump, so instead they just let the highway trust fund run dry and then raid the general fund to replenish it – meaning we’re all paying for their refusal to cover the cost of highways.

Adding a few more lanes should do the trick. Photo of the 405: Atwater Village Newbie

After yesterday’s electoral drubbing, the Obama administration will have to deal with a starkly different Congress when they make their expected push for a multi-year transportation bill early next year. We know that some influential House Republicans, like John Mica, don’t necessarily believe that bigger highways will solve America’s transportation problems. And we know that some pro-transit voices in Washington originate from the right. But no one expects the GOP ascendancy to make transportation reform any easier.

For a taste of the right-wing line against transportation reform, check out the election week issue of the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. Inside, editor Fred Barnes (under fire recently for accepting speaking fees from the GOP) mounts an attack on just about every federal transportation policy other than highway spending. There’s nothing really conservative about Barnes’s screed — it could have come straight from the pen of an asphalt industry lobbyist. Wondering what a transportation bill would look like if it were reshaped according to what highway boosters believe should be the “core program”? Read Barnes and find out.

He starts by ridiculing Ray LaHood’s speech at the 2010 National Bike Summit, where the transportation secretary said that Americans “want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities.” Barnes disagrees:

LaHood was half right. People hate traffic congestion. But they want to get out of their cars about as much as they want to get stuck behind a bicyclist who rides at a donkey’s pace before running through red lights and stop signs. What people mainly want is to stay in their cars and have LaHood do something to reduce congestion.

Like finance the construction and maintenance of highways and bridges to facilitate the flow of autos and trucks. That, rather than promoting “livability” or “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized,” is the job of the Department of Transportation. Always has been.

This is, basically, his entire argument: People just want to “stay in their cars.” We have zero interest in getting around any other way. According to Fred Barnes, we are perfectly content to drive and drive and drive, as long as we don’t have to put up with all the other people driving. If you believe that, then his cheerleading for highway construction makes a lot of sense.

If being inside our cars is what we’re really all about, by all means lets throw more money down the sinkhole of highway expansion. That will guarantee more quality time inside our cars. Then, a few years later, when we’re in our cars but not enjoying it so much because the new lanes are jammed with traffic again, we’ll repeat the whole expensive process.

But if we’d rather spend more time with our families and loved ones — or, you know, doing actual work instead of commuting — maybe we should try a different way of building our transportation system. According to public opinion research by Transportation for America, 57 percent of Americans would like to spend less time in their cars. Even with our highway-centric system, we’re already voting with our feet: These days, Americans are driving less and opting to walk, bike, and ride transit more than we were at the beginning of the decade.

A cursory internet search reveals that, when Barnes says the job of U.S. DOT has always been to build highways and only highways, he’s just making stuff up. The U.S. DOT mission statement does not mention any particular mode. The department’s job is, in fact, to “serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.”

So there’s some flexibility here. Now, consider that the Pentagon is under the impression that climate change poses a risk to national security. Or that public health experts peg the annual medical costs imposed by traffic and pollution at more than $200 billion. Or the mounting evidence that car dependence begets obesity and higher medical costs. Or that, according to research by CEOs for Cities, travel times are longest in sprawling metro areas, while areas that pursued smart growth and livability strategies have actually reduced commute times. All of which points to the conclusion that at this moment, the U.S. DOT’s job — providing an efficient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and so forth — is indeed to advance livability and stop promoting motorized transport.

Back to the Barnes highway-building argument. Maybe you’re worried that fighting congestion by building more roads that generate more congestion is not a wise way to spend money. But Fred Barnes isn’t. He is, however, highly concerned about spending on rail:

The stimulus included $8 billion for high-speed projects, again not “paid for.” Now the administration is taking “the next step toward realizing its vision for high-speed rail,” the Department of Transportation said in June, handing out “$2.1 billion in grants to continue the development of high-speed intercity passenger rail corridors.”

On top of that, there’s talk in Washington of spending $50 billion more on high-speed trains. Where the funding would come from is anybody’s guess, but LaHood is fully on board. High-speed rail between cities is needed “so people can get out of their cars,” he said in an interview last month with Grist magazine. “They can take a train ride to see Grandma rather than doing it in a car.”

You know what else we haven’t figured out how to pay for? Highways. According to Subsidyscope, gas taxes and other fees have never covered the costs of the highway system. In 2007, fees collected from highway users barely covered half the costs of building and maintaining highways. That year, about $70 billion in highway funding came from other sources. (Even in New York, which, more than any other state, uses fees on driving to support public transit, drivers cover only 65 cents of each dollar spent on highways [PDF].) Meanwhile, the bicycle and pedestrian projects that Barnes moans about received all of $1.2 billion in federal funding in 2009, a record-setting year.

You could say that these massive subsidies for the highway system affect our behavior and induce driving. But Fred Barnes has different ideas about what affects our transportation decisions:

Last year, George Will zinged LaHood as the “Secretary of Behavior Modification” for his fervent opposition to cars. LaHood all but pleaded guilty. Steering funds from highways to bike and walking paths and streetcars, he said, “is a way to coerce people out of their cars.” His word, coerce.

But it’s hardly an answer to traffic congestion. Most people, most of the time, aren’t going to ride a bike to work or walk. They’re going to drive, even in the face of disincentives erected by LaHood.

LaHood will wear “coerce people out of their cars” around his neck forever. Which is ironic, because if anything, the Obama DOT has assiduously avoided erecting any “disincentives” to driving. The gas tax rate has been untouchable under LaHood. A mileage tax has been a non-starter. The last time U.S. DOT encouraged cities to pursue policies like congestion pricing or performance parking, which do affect driving behavior, George W. Bush was president.

Barnes wraps up with the following policy proposal:

The Obama administration, with its priority on ejecting people from their cars and its embrace of an environmental ethic that regards highways as evil, is unlikely to champion a higher gas tax. Any other tax increase you can imagine, yes. This one, no. That means Republicans will have to step up. They can insist the revenues be used solely for highways and bridges. Local governments would then be free to spend on bikeways.

A lobbyist for highway builders could hardly have said it better. The gas tax is theirs — it belongs to highways. This is the mentality that advocates for transportation reform will face off against in the months ahead, when the administration moves forward with its infrastructure push. Every dollar for transit, bicycling and safer streets will be contested. Be prepared.

Chart: University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

The success of state-level plans to increase gas taxes is tied to the media’s portrayal of the proposals in question, with narratives tied to "crumbling infrastructure" and "economic progress" showing more success than those emphasizing long-term transportation budget gaps, according to a new report released by the University of Vermont’s Transportation Research Center (TRC).

The TRC report examined six states where lawmakers debated raising gas taxes to close infrastructure budget gaps between 2006 and 2009. Three of the states ultimately approved gas tax increases (Oregon, Minnesota, and Vermont) — two of them over the opposition of the governor, as seen in the third column of the above chart — and three of the state (Massachusetts, Idaho, and New Hampshire) nixed the proposed tax increases.

While acknowledging that "there are many possible explanations for the success and failure of gasoline tax increases at the state level," TRC researcher Richard Watts attempted to categorize the "frames" used to depict the proposals in local media as well as the Associated Press wire service.

Watts broke down the most popular media narratives by whether they emphasized arguments made by supporters or opponents of the proposed tax hikes. The most common so-called "pro frames" focused on each state’s decaying infrastructure, which would be in line for a boost thanks to new gas tax revenues; the economic upside of improving travel times and creating jobs by pursuing more gas tax-funded repair projects; and the long-term benefits of solving persistent budget crises by raising fuel fees.

Watts also marked off three frequently used "anti frames": broad opposition to tax increases of any kind; a perceived public preference for cutting other government spending before resorting to raising taxes; and the economic downside of raising fuel charges during a recession.

The report did not show an across-the-board correlation between positive portrayals of higher gas taxes and the ultimate passage of state-level proposals to that effect. As seen in the above chart, media coverage in five out of the six states studied featured a majority of "pro frames," yet two of those states failed to act on gas tax legislation.

But the nature of the media narratives used did appear to have an effect on the success of state-level tax increases. From Watts’ report:

In Vermont and Minnesota, crumbling infrastructure comprised the majority of the pro-gas tax frames. This is a powerful frame that carries images of collapsing bridges, aging and deteriorating roadways, threats to physical health and a system in dire jeopardy. …

In Massachusetts and Idaho the dominant pro-gas tax frame was long-term solution – displayed about 75 percent of total pro-gas tax frames. This frame emphasized funding and financial mechanisms and lacks the imagery of crumbling infrastructure. In both states the debate in the news discourse became about transportation system funding, not the deteriorating system.

Another wild card, according to Watts’ research, was the "media standing" of the public figures making pro- or anti-gas tax arguments. In Massachusetts, for example, he found insufficient data to explain the source of the media’s emphasis on the more wonkish "long-term solution" frame — whether it was also the dominant narrative of Gov. Deval Patrick (D), a tax-hike supporter, or whether it dominated the debate for other reasons.

Nonetheless, the report could provide food for thought for House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), as his party’s resistance to a federal gas tax increase continues to force a challenging search for alternative transport financing tactics.

Does the Senate climate bill include a user fee? That depends on how the term is defined. (Photo: Pop and Politics)

"Congress can ill-afford to consider any legislation that" siphons off money from the trust fund, which has required more than $30 billion in replenishment from the general Treasury over the past 18 months, Horsley said.

Stephen Sandherr, chief of the Associated General Contractors -- a backer of the Senate effort to bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of congressional action -- echoed that sentiment in his own statement on the upper-chamber climate proposal.

"[B]y taking funds raised through the proposal’s new transportation fees and committing all but a small percentage to unrelated spending, the legislation leaves our aging and inefficient roads, airways and transit systems vastly underfunded," Sandherr said.

But does the Senate climate bill impose a user fee on transportation fuel consumers? The text of the measure specifically requires "each refined [fuel] product provider" to purchase emissions permits from the EPA on a quarterly basis at a fixed price, with no permit trading allowed. Horsley's depiction of those charges as a "user fee" relies on the considerable likelihood that oil companies and refiners would pass on the cost of those emissions permits to consumers in the form of higher gas prices.

In the meantime, how much of the revenue raised by the bill's new fuel permits would infrastructure receive?

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimated last week that the Senate plan would raise $20 billion from the new charges on oil producers and refiners, with about $6.25 billion of that divided into equal parts -- one-third for the highway trust fund, one-third for competitive federal grants similar to the TIGER program, and one-third for local land use projects, in the style of the so-called "CLEAN TEA" proposal.

Villaraigosa (r.) with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another co-chief of Building America's Future. (Photo: Getty)

Rendell and Villaraigosa came to the Capitol for a visit to the House Ways and Means Committee's revenue panel, which faces the challenging task of finding a workable financing mechanism for long-term federal transportation legislation.

Villaraigosa used his high-profile push for federal assistance with his city's "30/10" transit plan, which would expedite construction of 13 rail and rapid bus projects using proceeds from a voter-approved sales tax, to urge lawmakers' support for an NIB.

"We're not only arguing for infrastructure investment on the federal level," he said. "We're saying ... at a time of spiraling deficits, we've got to encourage local governments to put up their own money. We have done that [in L.A.]."

Rendell, who has used his role as co-chairman of the advocacy group Building America's Future to amass support for an NIB, quoted GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe's (OK) support for federal transport spending in a bid to depict infrastructure as a uniquely bipartisan issue.

"The American people are way ahead of us," Rendell told Ways and Means members. "Infrastructure is something they can touch, they can see, they can experience ... This is easier, in terms of public perception, than anybody thinks."

But even as the duo focused on the NIB -- which Rendell and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) agreed should be placed outside the U.S. DOT, counter to the White House's proposal -- the specter of the federal gas tax hung over the room. One day after conservatives began using anti-gas tax arguments in a bid to derail the new Senate climate bill, lawmakers prodded Rendell and Villaraigosa to share their views on the subject.

Rendell, specifying that he was "not speaking for" his advocacy group, endorsed a gas tax increase. Villaraigosa followed, confidently: "I unequivocally support an increase in the gas tax ... if America is going to continue to maintain its highways and infrastructure, it's crucial."

Few Democrats on the Ways and Means panel, however, were prepared to echo their colleagues from the state and local levels.

"I think we'd have a hard time passing a gas tax increase in the Democratic delegation [and] a hard time passing it in the Pennsylvania delegation," Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) told Rendell after the governor cited surveys that show the majority of the public incorrectly believes the tax is already indexed for inflation. "I just think these polls may not be as telling as we'd like to think."

A middle-ground approach was offered by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who reminded fellow House members that "there is no reason we have to raise a gas tax, this year or next year," to pay for sustained new federal transport investment. "As long as we establish a revenue path going forward within a 10-year budget score, we can leverage it."

Still, in a political climate dominated by incumbents in both parties running scared ahead of the November midterm elections, the prospects for any significant commitment from Washington appeared bleak.

In its second
Earth Day release, the U.S. DOT today unveiled a 600-page analysis of
transportation emissions mandated by Congress in the 2007 energy bill.
In addition to weighing in on many potential tactics for limiting
transport’s contribution to the changing climate, the document notably
recommits the Obama administration to that goal at a time when
Democrats are weighing a delay in the energy debate.

Indeed,
the analysis concludes with a candid assessment that the nation’s
existing methods of transportation and land use planning have generated
an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuel consumption:

The ingenuity of transportation planners and engineers has produced a
vast network of transportation infrastructure and services to support
the mobility and economic vitality of the Nation. However, our historic
approach to transportation and land use has created an energy-intensive
system dependent on carbon-based fuels and automobiles.

The authors, including three dozen aides at the U.S. DOT’s Center for
Climate Change and more than a dozen private consultants, also take a
direct tone in evaluating the various emissions-cutting policy
proposals that are available to the Obama administration.

For
instance, the analysis identifies several upsides to increasing the gas
tax, which has "a strong precedent for [its proceeds] being dedicated
to transportation investments," as opposed to a broader carbon tax or
cap-and-trade system, where multiple competing interests would — and did,
as the House climate bill shows — lay claim to a share of the
resulting government revenue to help finance efficiency upgrades.

The
major downside of a gas tax hike to spur emissions cuts, according to
the analysis, would be its risk of exacerbating economic inequity for
businesses and lower-income workers dependent on auto travel. But the
debate is moot, as the U.S. DOT authors remind their congressional
audience, because "an increase in the federal motor fuel tax is not
proposed by the current Administration, given the economic recession."

The
analysis is also open about the unnavigable politics of setting lower
speed limits, despite their potential to yield "an immediate and
significant impact on [greenhouse gas] reductions as well as yield
substantial safety and air quality co-benefits." The U.S. DOT authors
wrote:

Public resistance is likely to be high, and
an aggressive education program and strong political leadership would
be required to gain broad support. Delay costs could be incurred in
goods movement and passenger travel. … In addition, this strategy
would require enhanced enforcement and could impose considerable costs
on States to pay for increased traffic monitoring and enforcement.

A
complete copy of the U.S. DOT analysis, including its comparison of the
emissions-reducing benefits of better land use planning (minor to
moderate) and fuel-efficiency improvements (moderate to high) is
available for download here.