Congress pushes highway funding fix into summer

OREANDA-NEWS. Congress will give itself at least two more months to find long-term financing for national highway funding that expires at the end of May.

The delay means continued uncertainty on programs that help local governments pay for asphalt-demanding road infrastructure projects. Higher federal gasoline taxes have been proposed as one solution, while a number of states sought to adjust their own fuel taxes to help cover road costs.

Legislation introduced late last week in both the Senate and House of Representatives would give Congress until 31 July to address looming insolvency in the Highway Trust Fund. Current funding authorization ends on 31 May.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said they could not find support for extending short-term funding into next year.

"It was our preference to move an extension through the end of the year, but we will need more time to reach a bipartisan agreement on offsets," Shuster and Ryan said in a statement shortly after filing the legislation.

The filing is the latest in a series of roughly 23 short-term extensions on an issue Congress has not addressed with long-term funding since 2009. States have struggled to plan more than minor maintenance as they wait for resolution on funding for highways, bridges and tunnels.

Republican leaders have said proposed changes to the federal gas tax that would tie the levy to inflation — the tax's first adjustment in decades — would not pass. Other proposals include taxes on foreign earnings and diverting spending from public transportation.