Alabama congressional delegation splits on short-term highway bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 312-119 to pass a short-term extension of Federal transportation funding. Congress has been dealing with transportation funding shortfalls estimated at about $16 billion per year. Since 2005, lawmakers have not passed a transportation bill that lasted longer than two years.

House Republican leadership says the stopgap measure will buy time to negotiate a long-term highway bill which must be completed by July 31.

“We don’t like patches more than anybody else does,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman and former VP candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) said. “But this patch is necessary to make sure that [construction] projects don’t stop.”

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL1) is not happy with the continual use of patchwork funding packages. “At some point we have to draw the line on these short-term highway funding bills, and I think that time has come,” he said. “By continually putting off tough decisions, we are being fiscally irresponsible and making it impossible to move forward with large scale infrastructure projects like the I-10 bridge over the Mobile River.”

The state’s lone Democratic representative, Terri Sewell (D-AL7), voted in favor of passage, but shared in Byrne’s displeasure with the non-comprehensive nature of the deal. “It’s disappointing that Congress once again has failed to propose a long-term solution to invest in our nation’s roads, bridges, and rails,” she wrote in a press release. “The Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015 is yet another Band Aid, but without this temporary fix the Department of Transportation would be unable to fund any new commitments to fix our aging infrastructure.”

Alabama’s Congressional Delegation was split down the middle in the final roll call. Reps. Martha Roby (R-AL2), Mike Rogers (R-AL3), Robert Aderholt (R-AL4), and Terri Sewell (D-AL7) voted for the bill while Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-AL1), Mo Brooks (R-AL5), and Gary Palmer (R-AL6) voted against.

The $8 billion ‘patch’ now goes to the Senate where an amendment tacking on the revival of the Export-Import Bank will be considered. This issue creates a major problem for House conservatives who voted for the bill’s original passage.

The charter for the Export-Import Bank of the United States expired at the beginning of this month, ending a New-Deal Era government program that opponents considered to be corporate welfare writ-large and a free market distortion.

Not only is the return of Ex-Im on the table in the Senate, but many are considering an increase in the Gas Tax to fund the long-term transportation budget fix.

The 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax has been the main source of income for the Highway Trust fund but the federal government has outspent its revenue intake by $16 billion per year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated it will take about $100 billion, in addition to the existing gas tax revenue, to pay for a six-year transportation funding bill which is why Senate liberals are calling for an increase.

While transportation supporters have pushed for a gas tax increase of as much as 15 cents per gallon to pay for a long-term infrastructure funding bill, Republican leadership has ruled out a tax hike.