[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11380-11381]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SHORT-TERM HIGHWAY FUND EXTENSIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, 2-year short-term highway fund extensions 
have become one of Congress' most costly habits. Kudos to the Senate

[[Page 11381]]

Committee on Environment and Public Works, which has marked up the 
highway portion and may come to the floor this week with a 6-year bill.
  That bill is not yet paid for, but the Senate is at least making 
progress toward a 6-year bill, the kind that is needed to make a dent 
in the backlog of our construction projects in the States.
  We should not be deterred by the likelihood of another short-term 
bill, perhaps going to the end of the year. The goal before the year is 
out must be a long-term bill.
  Congress has taken to authorizing the highway trust fund for 2 years, 
knowing full well that the trust fund, collecting gas user fees at 1993 
levels, would run out even before those 2 years are out; then the waltz 
begins with endless short-term bills.
  The States are disgusted and exhausted. MAP-21 ran out before the end 
of its 2-year lifetime. The last short-term bill extension was so 
useless that it has lasted longer than expected because the States 
could not apply the funds to the backlog of now endless rescheduled 
projects; 6-month extensions have yielded 6-month projects, usually 
only patchwork.
  This poster goes beyond showing that the short-term extensions have 
been useless to the States. These short term bills and extensions are 
having negative effects on the pocketbooks of our constituents. The 
highway user fee, which has not been raised for 22 years, costs drivers 
$97 a year. The bad roads that are the result cost those same drivers 
$515 per year.
  Find your State for the cost to your constituents. Here is a random 
sample: Louisiana, $514 per year; Oklahoma, $763 per year; New Jersey, 
$685 per driver; Ohio, $446 per driver; California, $762 per driver; 
and Pennsylvania, $471 per driver.
  All the figures are high, regardless of State or region of the 
country, and those high dollar amounts go out of the pockets of our 
constituents to patch bad roads, instead of putting the funds into 
fixing those roads, bridges, and transit.
  Congress' short-term attention to our roads, highways, transit and 
bridges is breaking the bank, not for the Federal Government, but for 
our constituents. It is no longer the old adage ``you can't get 
something for nothing'' rather, not funding the highway trust fund for 
6 years costs the people we represent not nothing, but $515 per driver.
  We have got to fund our transportation projects or ask our 
constituents to pay for their bad roads. The costs to the American 
people make our options clear what the best thing to do is.

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