Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990 TAG: 9003071867
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
The administration intends to pay for the federal role without raising the federal motor fuel tax, in keeping with President Bush's promise not to raise taxes, while urging states to raise their fuel taxes.
Most of the federal spending would be out of a highway trust fund supplied with revenue from the federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel.
The fund has a surplus that officials estimate can support substantial increases in federal highway spending, from the current $14 billion a year, for three years.
The program, according to senior Transportation Department officials, would commit the government to more spending on 160,000 miles of highways considered to have special national significance because they connect population and economic centers.
About 740,000 miles of other roads would remain eligible for federal aid, but under the administration's thinking the responsibility for these routes would shift significantly toward state and local governments.
For motorists, the major concern about the highway program is whether it will achieve the goal of providing some relief to the growing congestion that plagues even the largest and most sophisticated roads.
The Bush administration says that in 1987, congestion bogged down 65 percent of urban rush-hour traffic on interstate highways and 17 percent of rural rush-hour interstate traffic.
The plan's premises will be set forth Thursday when Bush presents a comprehensive new national transportation policy that has been under development for many months. Later that day, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner will discuss it at the opening of congressional hearings.
But its full details will not be published for several months, and congressional debate about the proposals is likely to extend into next year.
Reaction to the plan, which Skinner has explained at recent meetings with state highway officials, has been mixed.
"The federal role has been shrinking steadily throughout the decade," said David Ernst, an official of the New York State Transportation Commission.
"This would shrink it further. We don't know quite what their definition of nationally significant highways is, but we're concerned they won't include most of our roads."
But Carl Williams, assistant director for fiscal policy of the California Transportation Department, praised the administration's approach.
"It permits each state to identify its priorities in the context of its own environment," he said. California already has a ballot initiative under way to raise its fuel tax by 9 cents a gallon.
Congress has not been briefed about the administration plan.
Skinner said "there is always going to be a major federal role" in highway systems. "But traditionally," he added, "the federal government has assumed an 80 percent role, in some cases a 90 percent role. That is not realistic."
He said that if states "have to come up with a 50 percent local share, they are going to pay much more attention to how the money is spent."
Although the costs of the proposed program cannot be calculated until legislation to carry it out is submitted, it would clearly be in the billions of dollars.
Some lawmakers say the highway program should exceed $100 billion over the five years beginning in September 1991, when the current program expires.
No matter how the costs are shared, it seems virtually certain that motorists will be paying new fuel taxes, tolls and other fees, if not to the federal government then to states.
The administration's plan probably would increase the federal budget deficit in its first few years as the trust fund diminished and the administration and Congress debated whether there should be an increase in the 9-cents-a-gallon federal fuel tax.
Skinner said the administration is eager to speed up the rate of withdrawals from the fund to pay for the federal road work. "If we possibly can, we want to do it," Skinner said.
The current surplus in the trust fund exceeds $10 billion and is growing each year. Highway spending, which is about $14 billion a year, has not kept up with fuel tax receipts of more than $16 billion a year.
Although some lawmakers favor increasing fuel taxes, Skinner said the administration remains opposed. As he has in the past, Skinner noted approvingly that many states have already raised their fuel taxes.
He added that the opportunity to increase them further might be lost if the federal government "pre-empted" this source of revenue.
The national highway program, which must be renewed by Congress every five years, is the nation's most extensive public works program, and interest in the impending revision has been high among state and local governments, members of Congress and industry groups.
The interstate system, 43,000 miles of highways begun by President Dwight Eisenhower, is now 98 percent complete, but is afflicted with congestion and decay and policy-makers have been pondering solutions for some time.
The last highway program, enacted in 1987, provoked a bitter fight after Ronald Reagan's veto was overridden by Congress. Reagan argued the bill was too costly and contained too many local projects of strictly local benefit.
Gene McCormick, deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, which is part of the Transportation Department, said in an interview that the agency was writing legislation to focus federal money on modernizing and expanding the 160,000 miles of major roads.
These would include most of the existing interstates, as well as other major roads that are essential to commerce and to regional transportation.
The additional 740,000 miles of local roads would remain eligible for federal aid, but under the administration's proposal states would pay a larger share of the costs of these routes.
States would be urged to increase their fuel taxes and would allowed to impose tolls, which are currently banned on most roads built with federal assistance.
The administration is considering, but has not yet decided upon, changes in federal methods of charging highway users for the enormous costs of roads.
One possibility would be to charge commercial trucks fees based on their weight and the distance they travel, reflecting more accurately than a flat fuel tax the disproportionate damage the big vehicles do to roads and bridges.
Administration officials say the highway proposals are intended to complement other transportation projects, such as urban mass transit systems, airports and passenger railroads.
The entire transportation strategy is meant to address even broader social issues such as safety, environmental protection, urban renewal and rural growth, international trade and economic competitiveness, officials say.
Accounting for more than half of federal spending on transportation, the highway proposals typify other parts of the broader transportation policy, calling for an increasing reliance on the states and local governments, additional user fees to pay for new investments and incentives for the private sector to bear a greater share of the investment burden.
by CNB