Senate panel approves long-term highway funding bill

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously approved a six-year highway bill with little fanfare Wednesday, setting up a long-term extension of funding for the nation’s decaying roads and bridges if lawmakers can find a way to pay for the package.

Congress is racing to fund the so-called DRIVE Act before the highway trust fund expires July 31, placing lending programs and states projects at risk.

The six-year extension would increase highway spending by 3 percent per year and be the longest reauthorization since 2005. Congress has failed to agree on anything longer than a two-year package in the past decade, despite concerns about faulty bridges and crumbling highway system.

Shorter extensions make it difficult for states and companies to plan for the long haul, the six-year bill’s backers say.

“We want a long-term bill,” Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, said. “We’ve gone through the agony of short-term extensions, and we don’t have to do that again. And for the sake of America, we shouldn’t do that again. That’s too expensive.”

Lawmakers will need $90 billion over the life of the bill to fill the gap between the bill’s cost and what the highway trust fund brings in with a 18.4 cents-per-gallon gas tax that hasn’t been raised since 1993.

Republican leaders will not raise the tax hike, although there is bipartisan interest in paying for the highway bill by repatriating foreign income back to the U.S.

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, said bipartisan momentum behind the bill should be enough to seal the deal, citing signals of support from the Senate majority leader and House speaker.

“If we have Mitch McConnell encouraged, if we have John Boehner encouraged, we have proven we can do this,” she said.

The bill prioritizes projects of national importance through targeted funds, sets aside money for rural areas and establishes a freight program to improve the movement of goods.

Committee members said the projects will reduce unemployment, help manufacturers ship out their products and re-instill faith in America’s commitment to its highway system.

“Is it an international embarrassment when in this great country we have an infrastructure that is crumbling,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent who is running for president. “Who can defend that? And who believes that by not paying attention to it, or turning our backs on it, it’s going to get better?”

While lawmakers cobble together funding, the Senate bill’s ambitions have won support from a cross-section of business and labor interests.

“The six-year, bipartisan bill put forth by the committee represents light-years of progress over the more than 30 destructive short-term patches Congress has been able to muster in the last decade,” said Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. “Congress should pass this bill and pair it with responsible action to pay for it.”