As part of its TEA-21 reauthorization work, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Rep. Don Young of Alaska, is working on a plan to pay for estimated U.S. transportation system investment and maintenance needs over the next seven years.  The plan proposes increasing gas taxes by 2 cents per gallon per year, totaling 30.4 cents per gallon by 2009, indexing the gas tax to the Consumer Price Index, which would generate about $18 billion from now until 2009, raising ethanol taxes, and reorganizing Highway Trust Fund interest and fuel taxes to help pay for projects (much of this revenue currently goes into the general fund). 

    The plan comes after the FTA estimated that $75 billion worth of maintenance work will be needed by 2009 to get the nation’s transportation systems into a state of good repair. An estimated $60 billion is needed to pay for maintenance on highways, up from $32 billion, while $12 billion is needed for transit, up from 7 billion.Note that this a 71% increase in transit maintenance spending and an 88% boost for roads.  

   Young hopes to have a bill finalized by March.  However, the tax increase emphasis seems to reflect the internal preoccupations of the transportation world at the expense of the broader political climate. To put it mildly, it seems very un-Bush-like. The adm. says it will release its proposed “TEA-3” legislation early next year, along with its 2004 budget.

   Separately, Sen. John McCain, set to chair the Senate Commerce Committee, said he would convene hearings on Amtrak reform next year.  

   McCain’s past calls for rail privatization notwithstanding, many Republican senators retain a basic ambivalence about killing Amtrak off.  “We’ve got to have a commitment by Amtrak that it’s going to be a national system,” Texas’ Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told Gannett.  She said the company devotes too much money and attention on the Northeast. “There’s got to be an evening out
of the resources.”  
 

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