[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8498]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TRANSPORTATION FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this week, we started the 33rd extension 
of the highway spending program. The 33rd time that we failed to deal 
meaningfully with the crisis in funding our transportation system. It 
is a symbol of Congress' failure to deal with a country that is falling 
apart and falling behind.
  No country became great building its infrastructure 7 months at a 
time.
  It prompts silly ideas. One recently, an op-ed page of The Wall 
Street Journal, talks about ``Taxing for Highways, Paying for Bike 
Lanes'' as the problem. Well, as is pointed out in letters to the 
editor today, it is not spending on bike paths which Dr. Pete Ruane, 
head of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, 
pointed out is about 1 percent of the total Federal transportation 
highway budget, if you include sidewalks as well.
  No, the problem is that we are paying for 2015 infrastructure with 
1993 dollars. We have not raised the gas tax in 22 years. Now, I would 
suggest that what we ought to do is to look at the broad coalition that 
is represented by the authors on that page from the roadbuilders and 
the cyclists--they are representative of the broadest coalition on any 
issue in American politics today--from the AFL-CIO to the U.S. Chamber 
of Commerce, the truckers--represented eloquently by Governor Bill 
Graves, who is not just president of the American Trucking 
Associations, he was the Republican Governor of Kansas who raised the 
gas tax not once, but twice.
  There is an opportunity for us to break the logjam. I would suggest 
that maybe the House Ways and Means Committee could, for the first time 
in the 55 months that the Republicans have been in charge, actually 
meet to discuss transportation funding. That is our job.
  Let's dedicate an entire week to solving this problem. Let's invite 
in representatives of that broad coalition: people who build, maintain, 
and use our transportation system. Let's hear from the six Republican 
States that already this year have raised the gas tax, red Republican 
States: Utah; Georgia; South Dakota; Idaho; Iowa; and, most recently, 
Nebraska, where the legislature overrode the Governor's veto to raise 
their gas tax.
  It is time for Congress to do its job and to be in partnership with 
those States who expect us to maintain the Federal responsibility. 
Let's hear from the broad array of people and then allow the Ways and 
Means Committee to follow regular order.
  There is more support for raising the gas tax. The public is already 
paying the price. The bill I have, which would provide 210 billion 
additional dollars over the next decade, would cost the average 
motorist just about $90 a year. At a time of declining gas prices, that 
is not that great, but motorists are now paying $350 a year on average 
in damage to their cars. The country paid $125 billion in the cost of 
congestion.
  Let's stop beating around the bush. Let's pass the first 6-year 
transportation reauthorization, the first since 1998. The first step is 
for the Ways and Means Committee to do its job, bring these people in, 
work together on a bipartisan basis, raise the gas tax, index the gas 
tax, then abolish the gas tax, replace it with something that is 
sustainable.
  In the meantime, let's rebuild and renew America and put hundreds of 
thousands of people to work at family-wage jobs while we strengthen 
communities from coast to coast.

                          ____________________