[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 512-513]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE GAS TAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the momentum for an increase in the 
Federal gas tax continues to build. This weekend's excellent New York 
Times editorial made the case why the increase is needed and long 
overdue. Costs of repair increase dramatically the longer they are 
delayed. In the meantime, Americans paid billions of dollars for 
congestion, wasted gas, and repairing damage to their cars, and 
thousands of lives are lost due to unsafe roads. This followed an 
editorial in The Washington Post making the same argument, joining USA 
Today, L.A. Times, and a variety of newspapers across the country.
  Recently, we have seen eight Senators from both parties who have been 
identified as stepping up, either supporting a gas tax or at least 
being open to it. We have seen leadership at the State level as eight 
States in the last 2 years have increased gas taxes, including some 
very red States like Wyoming and New Hampshire. Here in the House, 
there are already 136 Members who have signed a bipartisan letter 
urging the leadership to act on providing appropriate funding that is 
sustainable and dedicated.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we do have a solution. This issue has been studied 
extensively, including two Presidential commissions during the Bush 
administration. The conclusion was that there is no better, more 
effective solution than simply raising the gas tax, which hasn't been 
increased in 22 years.
  People know America is falling behind as it is falling apart. The 
concern about the financial impact of a gas tax increase on families is 
waning. As gas prices plummet, my corner gas station is selling 
gasoline at $1.60 per gallon less than its peak last year.

[[Page 513]]

  I will be reintroducing the funding proposal I had in the last 
Congress. That legislation was widely supported by a range of interests 
that included labor, business, the professions, local government, 
transit, environmentalists, truckers, AAA, and cyclists. They all 
agreed that there is a critical need to fund investments in rebuilding 
and renewing America.
  Mr. Speaker, the arguments today are basically the same that were 
used by President Ronald Reagan in his Thanksgiving Day address in 
1982. He used his nationwide radio speech 33 years ago to call for an 
increase that more than doubled the Federal gas tax. He pointed out 
that that tax is actually for the people who benefit from using it, 
that the user fee would cost less than the damage to repair their cars 
from damage due to poor conditions from roads and bridges. As President 
Reagan said, it would probably be less than a pair of shock absorbers.
  He pointed out that the gas tax then, as now, had not been raised in 
more than two decades, and that repairing infrastructure that was 
failing would put hundreds of thousands of people to work while it 
protected the investment in our infrastructure as well as in our 
automobiles
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to step up. The States are doing 
their part. People are exploring innovative financing approaches 
involving the private sector. People are looking at creative ways to 
design and build projects, but there is no substitute for the 25 
percent of infrastructure funding that comes from the Federal 
partnership. It is absolutely essential for projects that are 
multiyear, projects that are multimodal and that involve a number of 
jurisdictions, often a number of States.
  This May we face the expiration of the short-term highway trust fund 
fix from last summer. We are back in the exact same situation we were 
then. Failing to address the funding issue head-on has meant that we 
haven't had a 6-year reauthorization approved by Congress since 1997. 
Since then, we have had two ever-shorter reauthorizations and 21 
temporary extensions. Over $60 billion of general fund money has been 
needed to just prop up our inadequate system.

                              {time}  1030

  Mr. Speaker, no country has become great planning and building its 
infrastructure 6 months at a time. It is time to capitalize on falling 
oil prices, on the momentum that is building around the country, and 
the realization that we need to act now.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to join me and, indeed, President 
Reagan in this long overdue action. America will be better off, the 
economy will be stronger, communities will be more livable and our 
families safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

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