Transportation

The bridge collapse in Minneapolis on August 1, 2007 was a horrible thing to witness. I was working at my desk with a nearby television on to catch up on the day's news and saw the nearly real-time scenes that seemed completely unbelievable. Minnesota freshman Senator Amy Klobuchar shortly thereafter said exactly what we all were thinking:

"A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down."

But, it did. And, as horrible as the deaths and injuries are, the really amazing part of the story is that it wasn't worse. It happened right in the middle of rush hour on Interstate 35W spanning the breadth of the Mississippi River. It really is unbelievable that the death toll wasn't far greater. The transportation infrastructure system in the U.S. is vast and complex. It also is extensively used and burdened. It receives a lot of maintenance, could certainly use more, and is examined, evaluated, and inspected regularly by professionals. The work is all done by human beings, and humans can make mistakes and sometimes accidents happen without really good explanations.

So now what to do?

The politicians immediately got in gear -- with Washington's tried and true answer to everything -- raise taxes and spend more money.

The Senate and House immediately raised the emergency spending provisions of the Transportation bill from $100 million to $250 million to assist with the repair of the bridge. House Transportation Committee Chairman, Jim Oberstar, the dean of the Minnesota delegation, wasn't finished yet though. He immediately seized on the bridge collapse to promote an idea I heard him champion endlessly while I was on the Transportation Committee in the 108th Congress -- a nickel a gallon federal tax increase.

The current 18.4 cent per gallon federal tax on gasoline goes into a treasury account called the Highway User Trust Fund (HUTF), and is ostensibly for road construction and maintenance. The problem is the process has become so corrupted that projects like parks, bikeways, sidewalks, trolley cars, and studies on how to keep from killing wildlife are now funded by the gas tax. Not to mention that approximately 10 percent of the entire fund goes to member "earmark" projects. Yes, that includes the now famous "bridge to nowhere" Sen. Ted Stevens championed in Alaska.

I'll defend Colorado's delegation -- Democrat and Republican -- for being pretty reasonable with their requests. I served as Vice-Chairman of the Highways Subcommittee in 2003-04. The delegation worked very closely with local and regional government representatives and the Colorado Department of Transportation to coordinate their member requested earmarks for high priority projects that had been identified by a consensus of all parties.

The earmark process itself though is out of control. It clearly has become a tool for incumbent protection by both parties, and it has reached excessive proportion. Many members love nothing more than to "bring home the bacon" for a transportation project in their district. As it existed though, any member from Colorado that didn't feed at the trough of Transportation earmarks and get their allotted share would have only disadvantaged Colorado, because the set aside for total earmarks in the bill was fixed and would have simply gone to other members in other states to pad their own re-election resume.

In the wake of the I-35W bridge collapse, it is fully understandable that there is a Congressional outcry for improved bridge inspection and maintenance. The fact is the I-35W bridge had been inspected and re-inspected and was thought to be in good shape until 2020. If anyone should have suspected the bridge to be defective, you'd think it would have been obvious to the Minnesota delegation that was certainly active in the member earmark arena -- to the tune of 147 separate earmarks for $500 million -- and not one penny for that bridge, even from Chairman Oberstar.

But, now he has found an emergency reason for a gas tax increase. Oberstar took the occasion of the bridge collapse, along with 32 years of Congressional experience under his belt, to mount the Chairman's pulpit and try to shame colleagues in Congress into supporting his proposal. "If you are not prepared to invest an additional 5 cents for road reconstruction, bridge reconstruction, God help you, you haven't got a sense of future."  That's definitely the hell-fire-and-brimstone Jim Oberstar that I remember. He intends to introduce his tax increase and hold hearings when Congress reconvenes in September.

Now for another perspective: mine

The HUTF is headed to bankruptcy. The demand for revenue driven by the amount and aging of the national infrastructure increases. Cost of construction has increased beyond just inflation, driven largely by concrete and steel costs. And, as already noted, the HUTF itself has been corrupted by Congress to fund not only roads and bridges, but virtually everything imaginable.

The gas tax is fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon. However, gasoline consumption is declining and will continue to do so as cars go farther on a gallon of gas, and more cars are powered by other types of fuel. Both things that we want to see happen, and Congress has mandated to happen. So, the current funding mechanism is broken, and there exists a huge inequity among users of the nation's highways relating to the miles traveled and the amount of user taxes paid.

Rather than provide real leadership and introduce a better mechanism that does fund the nation's infrastructure system with a true "sense of future" that Oberstar seems concerned about, he uses a tragedy to promote another tax increase within a system he knows is flawed and will become more so with every year that passes.

Worse, Oberstar shamelessly pretends that he's only asking that you "invest an additional 5 cents" as if you were a child putting a nickel in a gum ball machine. What it really amounts to is more than a 27% tax increase on every gallon of gas you buy. He promises this is only "temporary".  The last nickel tax increase he was part of during the Clinton administration was supposed to be temporary, too. It's still there, and Oberstar is back asking for 100% more. Only in government does "temporary" translate directly into "permanent."

Additionally, the gas tax as currently configured is a regressive tax. It is more punitive on the working poor who typically live farther from work and spend far more of their disposable income on transportation expense. The system needs to be fixed, but Oberstar wants to just continue to bloat the pig that has already over indulged.

The last highway bill authorized $286 billion (everything anticipated to come into the HUTF with rose colored glasses on) over a six year period. Simplistically, Oberstar's 27% tax increase could yield at least $77 billion more for the HUTF in the next 5 years. There is little doubt that he and other members of Congress could come up with ways to spend it all, and soon be back again for more.

The Federal Highway Administration estimates it would take about $9.4 billion to address the nation's bridge problems over the next 10 years. So, halve the $9.4 ten year estimate to roughly match the remaining five years of the last highway bill and you get $4.7 billion -- not Oberstar's $77 billion. And, that's less than 20% of the total of just member earmarks, none of which received any legislative scrutiny for legitimacy. Maybe Oberstar could start looking for some money there?

There are other places to look:

• $8.6 billion to provide a "flexible finding source" to meet the requirement of the Clean Air Act.
• $370 million for recreational trails including "pedestrian, equestrian, bicycling and non-motorized snow activities."
• $100 million for a Pilot Program for four specific projects to "demonstrate the extent to which walking and bicycling can represent a major portion of the transportation solution in certain communities."
• An unspecified amount for a study of "Wildlife Vehicle Collision Reduction Study of methods to reduce collisions between motor vehicles and wildlife. The Secretary of Transportation is required to "develop a training course for transportation professionals" based on the conclusions of this study.

And, that's only a start. Oberstar's contention that a tax increase is necessary is hollow and packed with hypocrisy. For all of what he is not, Oberstar is certainly intelligent, and he knows the Transportation bill and funding process more intimately than probably any other member of Congress. Of all people, he knows the bill is stuffed with pork. He knows that unnecessary billions are being financed out of the HUTF only because some influential member got it stuffed in the bill, and he knows the process could be cleaned up and reformed.

If the FHA needs $4.7 billion to address the problem ($9.4 over ten years) he knows that is but 1.6% of the scope of the entire SAFETEA-LU six year authorization of $286 billion. An honorable representative of the people would have said he'd go clean up the process, find the money, and put it to better use to insure safe, efficient travel in America. But, he didn't do that.

What he did instead of look in his overstuffed Chairman's bag was to look into the pocket of working class folks. As any self-respecting Democrat is prone to do these days, less than a week after the bridge collapse according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, he "criticized the Bush administration for underfunding transportation needs."

Did I mention that not one dime of the more than $500 million from 147 different earmarks by the Minnesota delegation went to the I-35W bridge? Not even from the delegation's senior member, the Chairman of the Transportation Committee, Mr. Oberstar. But, of course, it's George Bush's fault.