[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 13 (Wednesday, February 5, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1019-S1020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. REID:
  S. 265. A bill to provide off-budget treatment for the highway trust 
fund; to the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Government 
Affairs, jointly, pursuant to the order of August 4, 1977, with 
instructions that if one committee reports, the other committee have 30 
days to report or be discharged.


             THE HIGHWAY TRUST FUND PROTECTION ACT OF 1997

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have just come from my office where I had 
a number of meetings. I met with a group of lawyers this morning. They 
were talking about issues that are going to come before the Congress 
that are important to them. But in the course of the conversation, I 
talked to them about the days when I was an attorney and practiced law.
  One of the things that has been brought to my mind as a result of my 
meeting with those lawyers today is how important it is to protect your 
client's assets. If you had a case for a client, any money that came in 
that was that client's property, you had to put that money in a trust 
account. None of that money in that trust account could be used to make 
a house payment or make a car payment of yours. Those moneys could only 
be used for the benefit of your client. If a lawyer violated the trust 
that he or she had with his client, you could lose your license to 
practice law. You could, in fact, be prosecuted criminally and go to 
jail.

  It seems around here that we handle people's trust accounts, the 
taxpayers' trust accounts in a very cavalier fashion. Today I want to 
talk about one of those trust funds. I want to talk about the highway 
trust fund. It is coincidental that I am here introducing legislation 
after having met in my office just a short time ago with Nevada's head 
of the department of transportation, a man by the name of Tom Stephens. 
He was back here with other Nevadans to tell me the problems that the 
State of Nevada has. I am a member of the Environment and Public Works 
Committee and we will have to address the problems of this entire 
country when we reauthorize the highway transportation bill this year. 
The people from Nevada were telling me about the problems we have in 
Nevada. They are significant. We are the most rapidly growing State in 
the Union. We have traffic jams where we never had them before, 
especially in the southern part of the State. He proceeded to tell me 
about five projects that will cost about $1 billion--extension of 
Highway 95, I-15 to the California border, in the Reno-Carson City area 
we have to get the freeway completed between Carson City and Reno, and 
a number of other very difficult projects that cost a lot of money. He 
was looking to me for guidance and direction as to how some of these 
very difficult projects could be directed--how moneys in the bill could 
be directed toward the State of Nevada.
  There is no question, Mr. President, that this is going to be a busy 
legislative year. As I have indicated, one of the things we will work 
on is the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, what we 
call ISTEA, reauthorization of the highway bill. This legislation plays 
an integral role in the financing of our Nation's transportation 
infrastructure. It is a bill that will receive bipartisan support, I 
hope, for a number of reasons. Most recognize the need to invest in our 
transportation infrastructure. It is that way all over the country.
  The Presiding Officer of this body today is from a very sparsely 
populated State, but it is a big State and covers a lot of area. I have 
driven much of the State of Wyoming. The State of Wyoming has, like 
Nevada but in a more exaggerated sense, a very small population base. 
However, the people of Wyoming travel these long distances and they 
want to travel these distances on good roads. Not only do the people 
that live in Wyoming need those good roads, but the State of Wyoming is 
surrounded by States that people are trying to get to. Wyoming is a 
bridge State. Thousands and thousands of people come to Wyoming every 
year to go to Yellowstone National Park. Should the people of Wyoming 
alone be responsible for those roads? Well, the answer is no, we have a 
Federal policy that helps the State of Wyoming in the road 
construction. You have demand in the State of Wyoming that cannot be 
met by the State of Wyoming. Your transportation director, I am sure, 
will come and visit the Presiding Officer, just like my State of Nevada 
head of transportation came and visited me, to talk about particular 
specific problems that you have in the State of Wyoming which are 
compounded by the bad weather that you have there.
  I am sure a lot of people do not know that this money we collect in 
the highway trust fund is not used for highway construction. What is it 
used for? It is used to mask the Federal deficit to the tune of about 
$20 billion. All of us agree that we need to invest in our highway 
transportation system. We all agree that there is a need to provide a 
safe, efficient, and modern transportation infrastructure, and most 
agree that too little is being spent on this important investment. The 
biggest reason, though, we are spending too little on this investment 
is we are not spending the money we have in trust to spend. Just like 
the example I gave earlier where I, as an attorney, would take my 
client's money, just as we as a Federal Government take our client's 
money, the taxpayer, every time a gallon of gas is purchased, we take 
approximately 19 cents. Most of that money is required by law to be 
spent on the infrastructure of this country and it is not. That is what 
is wrong. Finances that should go to the highway construction is being 
use for other purposes. The money collected is not being used, I 
repeat, for its intended purpose. It is a perversion of the whole 
notion of how a trust fund should operate.
  There have been earlier attempts to end this misspending by taking 
the transportation trust fund moneys off budget. In the House it has 
been successful. I am going to initiate an effort here in the Senate 
too to do likewise. They have not only gotten it out of committee in 
the House, they passed it on the floor. I support these efforts that 
they have initiated in the House because I believe we need to protect 
the integrity of these trust funds. I believe we should attempt to get 
these funds off budget and we should do it now.
  That is why I am introducing this bill, the Highway Trust Fund 
Protection Act of 1997. It is very straightforward. It is a short bill. 
By taking the highway trust fund off budget we will be fulfilling our 
commitment to the taxpayer. We will be spending the revenues on the 
specific activities identified as the purpose of these trust funds. Mr. 
President, the trust fund is financed by sales taxes on tires, trucks, 
buses, trailers, as well as truck usage taxes. But about 90 percent of 
the trust fund revenue comes from excise taxes

[[Page S1020]]

on motor fuels. As I have indicated earlier, the majority of the motor 
fuel revenue dedicated to the trust fund is derived from 18.4 cents per 
gallon tax on gasoline. Of this, 14 cents is dedicated directly to the 
highway trust fund. Of the remaining 4.5 cents, 4.3 cents go to deficit 
reduction and one-tenth of 1 percent goes to the leaky underground 
storage fund.

  Mr. President, there are many arguments for taking these trust funds 
off budget. I will talk about a few. First of all, it represents a 
contract with the people of this country. We pass legislation that 
tells someone when they buy a gallon of gasoline, part of that money is 
going to go into a trust fund to improve the roads--the roads in 
Wyoming, the roads in Nevada, and all over this country. If the highway 
trust funds are not going to be used for their stated purpose, we 
should eliminate the tax, or part of it.
  According to the Federal Highway Administration there are significant 
infrastructure needs not being met. We do not need to go to the Highway 
Administration. We know by our own individual experiences in our 
individual States that it is important we spend more money on this 
construction. The trust fund inclusion in the unified budget subjects 
our outlays to the budget process. As a result, they are liable to 
legislative spending limitations. These limits are not based on 
analysis of national transportation spending need. Not once in the 5 
years since ISTEA was enacted have Federal highway programs been funded 
at their authorized levels; this, despite the fact that the Department 
of Transportation has identified billions of dollars in need.
  Remember, Mr. President, we have approximately $20 billion in excess 
funds not being spent and going into our infrastructure needs. The 
balances we run in the transit highway accounts makes no sense. This 
money should and could be invested in our Nation's highway system. It 
is estimated that to maintain--not improve, just maintain--our current 
highway system would cost over $200 billion. Taking the highway trust 
funds off budget will have limited effect on the deficit. The highway 
trust fund is user fee supported. The highway trust fund is deficit 
proof and has never contributed a single penny to the budget deficit. 
The highway trust fund supports long-term capital investments that 
produce economic benefits, which in turn generate increased revenue for 
the Federal Government.
  This bill is about protecting the integrity of the highway trust 
fund. All taxpayers have an interest in this. We are told when we pay 
taxes at the pump that this money goes toward maintaining and improving 
our roads. I wish that were so. It is a myth. It is a myth of the 
highway trust fund. My legislation provides truth and budgeting and 
would simply do away with this myth.
  It is unfair that we take a trust fund and use it for purposes other 
than for which the trust fund moneys were dedicated. I ask all of my 
colleagues to follow the example of the other body, the House of 
Representatives, and join me in supporting this legislation, which 
would take these moneys off budget and would allow us to spend the 
money that is so badly needed for highway construction in the United 
States.
                                 ______