WASHINGTON, D.C. — If the latest short-term extension for federal highway funding receives approval from President Obama this week, the clock will start again on the next deadline coming up in July.
But 1st District Congressman David McKinley (R-W.Va.) is among the lawmakers still pushing on Capitol Hill for a plan that covers years, not months.
“We’re holding out very strongly,” McKinley said. “We’re looking for a long-term bill and one in which we have adequate monies to do a five, six, seven year program.”
The Congressional debate about the Highway Trust Fund centers on geography.
“This is one of those classic struggles between big cities and rural (areas). The big cities control the votes in Congress. We, in rural America, we have the highways and we’re the ones with the greatest needs,” McKinley said.
Those needs, he argued, cannot be addressed properly in monthly increments. The White House had proposed a six-year, $478 billion transportation plan earlier this year.
Members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, though, recently voted only for the latest extension ahead of a May 31 deadline that, if missed, would have abruptly halted federal funding for infrastructure projects during the busy summer construction season.
In West Virginia, the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission last week released its long-delayed report on possible state mechanisms for funding for road construction and maintenance projects.
One suggestion was the continuation of toll collections on the West Virginia Turnpike beyond 2019 to finance $1 billion in construction bonds.
Other proposals for new road revenues included increasing the motor vehicle sales tax from its current five percent to six percent to match the state sales tax, adding to fees paid to the state Division of Motor Vehicles and creating alternative fuel vehicle registration fees.
“I’m glad that they spent the time to do the research with it, but there are still so many more questions that arise,” said McKinley of the Blue Ribbon report.
The commission estimated it would take $750 million additional dollars to improve the current road system in West Virginia and an additional $380 million to expand it—making the total $1.1 billion a year.
McKinley said only the most pressing needs should get the attention and any available funding. “Let’s get down to the basics. Let’s get down to what we can afford to have and not get clouded with wishlists,” he said.
On the federal level, discussions about potential long-term sources for additional road funding have included possibly taxing drivers by the number of miles they travel, expanding highway tolling or increasing the federal gas tax to keep pace with inflation.
The latest short-term federal road funding extension from Congress is one of more than 30 in the past six years and McKinley said action cannot wait any longer.
“I’ve never seen the roads in as bad a condition as they are right now,” he said.
“Some of the roads that I was involved with back in the ’60s, when I was with the (West Virginia) Road Commission, they’re now 50 years old, over 50 years old. This is time.”