“In the coming weeks, House Republicans will formally introduce an energy & infrastructure jobs bill, and hope to move the legislation through the House before the end of the year,” House Speaker John Boehner announced yesterday.
Back in September, the Speaker let slip that the GOP would like to “link the next highway bill to an expansion of American-made energy production.” Turns out, two House Republicans have already put forth proposals to do just that. Both plans pay for infrastructure investment not with user fees like a gas tax, but with revenues from oil drilling.
Yoking transportation funding to fossil fuel extraction presents a horrific feedback loop. Drill for oil to pay for infrastructure to drive more cars to burn more oil — it’s a recipe to entrench oil dependence in transportation policy in a whole new way.
Very few details have emerged so far about Boehner’s plan. For example, it’s unclear whether House leadership plans to use one of those bills as a guide. Most likely, it will combine the House Transportation Committee’s multiyear transportation reauthorization proposal with some hybrid plan to expand domestic energy production.
This new development is disheartening for anyone who genuinely wants to see a reauthorization pass anytime soon. Congress has been unable to pass one because of polarizing disagreements over funding and complete paralysis when it comes to taking the necessary step of increasing the gas tax. A plan to expand oil drilling, with the Deepwater Horizon disaster still fresh in Americans’ minds, is bound to be even more controversial.
With no chance of passing the Senate or being signed by the president, a bill like this will only serve to distract attention from more realistic proposals to reauthorize the surface transportation program. Besides, the logistics will likely be so complex and the revenues will be far enough in the future that even putting politics aside, the proposal is untenable.
AASHTO reacted positively to the news, however, with executive director John Horsley saying, “”It’s encouraging to hear Speaker Boehner express his support for transportation infrastructure investment and we appreciate his commitment to move a bill through the House in the near future.”
With Boehner’s announcement, expanded oil drilling – long a GOP goal – has become a condition for Republican support for adequate funding for the transportation bill. The House-proposed bill had included a one-third cut in funding across the board, which was resoundingly rejected by industry groups, transportation advocates, and Democrats. Several months later, House leadership agreed to raise the funding levels but wouldn’t say where the money would come from. Now we know.
