[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 4 (Monday, February 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S248]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISTEA

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, Senator Byrd has already spoken about the 
highway bill. I want to amplify on what he has said.
  When you go to the filling station and you pull up your car or truck 
and you take out that pump and stick it into your gasoline tank, now 
most filling stations don't have the little clip on the bottom. So you 
have to stand out there and pump it. Probably most people have done 
what I have done. And that is while you are standing there you read 
what is written on the gasoline pump. What is written on the gasoline 
pump is sort of bad news and good news. The bad news is that a third of 
the cost of a gallon of gasoline in this country on average is taxes. 
The good news is, as it says right on the gasoline pump, that every 
penny you pay in gasoline taxes is going to build roads.
  The problem that Senator Byrd and I are talking about today and the 
problem which we are trying to fix is that the bad news is true. A 
third of the cost of a gallon of gasoline is taxes. But the good news--
that it is spent on roads--is not true. In fact, today over 25 cents 
out of every dollar collected in gasoline taxes goes to general 
Government. It funds programs that have absolutely nothing to do with 
highways, transportation, or with gasoline taxes.

  My colleagues will remember--perhaps some people in the country that 
follow the debate will remember--that last year I offered an amendment 
to the tax bill that took the 4.3 cents a gallon tax on gasoline that 
had been part of the President's 1993 tax increase, and took that money 
away from general revenue and put it back into the highway trust fund 
where it belongs.
  That became the law of the land last October 1st. It went into 
effect. It went into the highway trust fund. Senator Byrd and I are 
trying to take a final step which we view as an honesty-in-Government 
step, and that is to require that the money that we collect in gasoline 
taxes be spent on roads. Those who oppose this amendment are trying to 
delay its consideration to get it commingled with the budget so that it 
simply can be portrayed as another competition for available money, and 
perhaps an effort to bust the budget.
  I want to remind my colleagues that the amendment which Senator Byrd 
and I have offered specifically does not bust the spending caps. All we 
are doing is asking that the money that we collect in gasoline taxes be 
spent for the purpose that we are telling the American people that the 
money will be spent. That would require us over the next 5 years to 
reallocate 1.4 percent of nondefense discretionary spending, and by 
reallocating it guarantee that the money goes to the purpose that we 
said that the money would go when we collected it at the gasoline pump.
  We have 50 cosponsors. I urge my colleagues to join us in this 
effort. I urge our leadership to not commingle this with the budget. We 
have a highway bill to write. The current highway bill will terminate 
on May 1. Money will not be available for construction after that time 
unless we act.
  I think it is important that we bring the bill up and that we have an 
up-or-down vote on honesty in Government, and that vote is, do you 
believe the gasoline tax, which we tell people goes to road 
construction, should actually go for that purpose? I believe it should. 
That is why I am a cosponsor with Senator Byrd, Senator Baucus, Senator 
Warner, and many others in this effort to basically require that 
gasoline taxes be spent on roads.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair.

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