The release of a national transportation commission report has Gov. Rick Perry crying foul over proposed gas tax increases and federal encroachment upon what he sees as states' business.
While some are siding with Perry in his argument in favor of state control of roads, folks from the agribusiness industry, an environmental watchdog group and the legislature say raising gas taxes might be the most practical way to help pay for future transportation needs. And one legislator poses a $3 billion question for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
The 258-page (full-color glossy) report from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, available here, contains a grocery list of problems, a buffet of recommended solutions and a smorgasbord of payment options, most of which have shown up from time to time on state lawmakers' menus.
Two years in the making, it represents the first major development in roadway politics since the death of Texas Transportation Commission Chair Ric Williamson. (Like the ghost in Hamlet, though, Williamson's voice echoes from the Undiscovered Country, in the form of a quotation — critical of how transportation projects are prioritized — from the commission's field hearing in Dallas: "Our revenue expenditure system is focused on road construction, which is a process, as opposed to reducing congestion, improving air quality, or transferring the movement of hazardous materials away from our urban center.")
The country's population will increase by 50 percent in the next 50 years, the report says, and transportation needs will grow even faster. The commission recommends further federal support of road and highway projects and a greater focus on alternative modes of transportation for people and goods, such as railroads and waterways. To pay for it all, the commission advocates hiking the federal fuel tax by 25- to 40-cents-per-gallon over the next five years and afterward tying the tax rate to inflation. The commission says that states should follow the feds' lead and raise state fuel taxes as well. Currently, the federal gas tax rate is 18.2 cents per gallon. Texas' is 20 cents per gallon.
The commission also recommends increasing taxes on heavy trucks, levying a "federal ticket tax" (like the tax you pay on an airline ticket) on all sorts of trips, instituting federal fees for freight shipping and taxing or capping greenhouse gas emissions. The commission also proposes allowing transportation entities to toll existing interstate highways and to institute congestion pricing on interstates in cities with a million or more people. It encourages public entities to enter into partnerships with the private sector to build highways.
Predicting technological advances (i.e., the development of alternative fuels) will render gas taxes inadequate by 2025, the commission recommends researching other ways to tax road users, such as making drivers pay taxes based on miles driven, rather than on gasoline burned. The commission also says that the existing 108 federal surface transportation programs should be combined and streamlined into 10 independent programs.
As for Texas, the commission proposes improvements to the existing Amtrak line connecting San Antonio to Dallas (and then to Oklahoma and beyond) and creating a new intercity passenger rail service between Dallas and Houston. The proposed railway would have trains speeding along on separate tracks at between 79 and 110 miles per hour.
"That's a great idea. I'm really glad to hear that because those are the things we've been advocating for years," says Dick Kallerman, Transportation Issues Chair for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. "Texas has been talking about that for a long time... talking about that. We borrow millions of dollars for highways; we do a lot of talking about rail."
Augmentation of public and private investment in freight rail is absolutely necessary for farming and ranching in Texas, says Steve Pringle, Legislative Director for the Texas Farm Bureau.
"We have got to have an adequate rail system," he says. "I've seen a decline in the quality of rail service in recent years. It's been hard for the railroads to raise money."
Highways and railroads are integral to agribusiness, he says, citing as an example the dairy industry in the Panhandle. Grain imported from other states goes in by rail to feed the cows, and the milk products leave in divers directions by truck.
The commission recommends the creation of an independent National Surface Transportation Commission to act as master architect — a reversion to centralized federal oversight of transportation policy and what the report describes as an "era of renewed Federal purpose." According to the report, this new independent commission would submit legislation to Congress for a straight "yea or nay" vote, with amendments prohibited in an effort to combat pork.
Perry's response highlights his displeasure with the proposed fuel tax increases, perhaps a reflection of Texas' status as a net exporter of federal tax dollars. "For every dollar sent to Washington, Texas receives back only 8 cents in federal transit program funds and only 70 cents in federal highway program funds," according to his op-ed.
That, coupled with a distaste for federal control over state projects, forms the meat of Perry's argument: "Tripling the federal gas tax while stifling states' ability to fund improvements by engaging the private sector could be a crippling blow to our economic future and disastrous for fast-growing states like Texas... Washington clearly can't meet today's transportation demands, so why should anyone believe they can handle tomorrow's?"
"The Governor's absolutely right," says Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso. "He's absolutely right on that second point: We can do a better job than the feds."
Federal money comes with so many strings attached that it's usually not worth playing the puppet, says Pickett, who's also a member and former chair of El Paso's Municipal Planning Organization.
Perry's objections were echoed by Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation Chairman Joe Krier: "... calling for federal gasoline tax increases of up to 40 cents per gallon is politically unrealistic and unfair to Texas drivers as long as roughly 30 percent of gas tax revenue we send to Washington is diverted to other states. Until the federal government starts treating Texas fairly and stops siphoning off the gasoline taxes we pay to Washington, it make no sense to Texans to support federal tax increases."
However, Pickett says it's "hypocritical" to rail against raising gas taxes while mortgaging roads for quick cash.
"We're borrowing too much money. We try to hurry up and build stuff, and we forget the future," he says. "Well, someone's got to pay the piper. We can't keep borrowing our way out of trouble."
Furthermore, Pickett won't be convinced by TxDOT's Chicken Little act until he can see where the agency's money is going now.
In each of the past five years or so, the agency has taken in an extra $500 to 600 million above its estimated budget, Pickett says, daring, "Try to find it."
"TxDOT keeps it a secret," he says.
Pickett also wonders why private companies can turn profits on toll roads while the state agency claims it can't do the same thing at no cost.
"They say private investment speeds up the process -- that means they're not doing a good job," he says.
"We can't live without them, but we sure could use some cooperation and understanding of the bigger picture," Pickett says.
The national Sierra Club officially supports increasing gas taxes, Kallerman says. (It's a win-win situation for the environmentalists, as a high enough tax would both raise money and reduce fuel consumption.)
Pringle says the Farm Bureau favors increasing the gas tax, so long as revenues are "dedicated to rural roads within the state."
As for tolls, private-public partnerships and, specifically, the Trans-Texas Corridor, "We're just not excited about that right now," Pringle says.
About a quarter or more of annual agricultural production — both from Texas and the United States as a whole — is exported to foreign countries, he says, underscoring how vital it is to agribusiness to have decent, interconnected railways, highways and waterways. For Texas, all exports must make their way to the Ports of Beaumont, Houston or Corpus Christi.
"We would like to preserve the partnership between the federal and state governments," Pringle says. "We don't need one or the other to take over the transportation system."
Red carpet watchers might also be interested to note that one of the commission's "Blue Ribbon Panel of Transportation Experts" is Steven Simmons, deputy executive director at TxDOT.
—by Patrick Brendel
