Senate Votes to Add $8 Billion to Highway Trust Fund
The Senate voted late Wednesday to add $8 billion to the federal highway trust fund, restoring solvency to an account that was running low on money needed to fund road and bridge projects around the country, the Associated Press reported.
The voice vote came five days after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said the trust fund would run out of money by the end of the month and urged Congress to approve an $8 billion replenishment bill that the White House previously had threatened to veto, AP said.
The House passed a similar bill in July and is scheduled to vote Thursday to send a final version to President Bush, AP reported.
“The Senate should be commended for acting swiftly to address the immediate needs of the trust fund,” Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said in a statement.
“It’s time to embrace a new approach to transportation that does not rely on high fuel consumption and instead directs funds where they are actually needed,” she said. “Congress must eliminate the billions in wasted spending, thousands of unneeded earmarks and hundreds of conflicting and contradictory special interest programs in order to make sure states don’t face this situation again.”
Senators from both parties said they were pleased the bill had passed, avoiding any “crisis” in highway spending, AP reported.
The Senate tried several times this year to steer money into the fund, but those actions were blocked by Senate Republicans who wanted to offer amendments or who objected to transferring $8 billion from the Treasury’s general fund into the trust fund, which comes from the federal gasoline tax, AP said.
The 52-year-old trust fund provides nearly half of public funding for surface transportation capital projects, and had a surplus of $10 billion just three years ago, AP said.
But in the past years, its solvency has dwindled as high gasoline prices forced drivers to cut down on their driving and switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles, AP reported.
Congress has not raised the federal fuel tax since 1993 despite inflation and sharp increases in construction costs, AP said. The federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents a gallon, and 24.3 cents a gallon for diesel.
The federal highway bill is scheduled to be reauthorized in 2009.