Highway bill reflects ongoing funding shortfalls

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a multiyear highway bill that includes more than $300 billion in transportation and infrastructure programs to address the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges.

The bill, however, still fails to address a chronic shortfall in financing for the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for such projects and has been the subject of a fierce, long-running disagreement over federal tax policy.

The House measure now must be reconciled with a Senate version adopted earlier this year. Like the House bill, the Senate measure included six years of policy prescriptions but only provided about three years’ worth of financing.

The vote in the House was 36364. Most of the “no” votes came from hard-line conservative Republicans who were angered that the bill was not fully paid for and that it included a provision to reopen the federal Export-Import Bank.

Some transportation experts also criticized the measure, which they said was too small to address the nation’s widespread, and worsening, infrastructure problems. President Barack Obama, in his budget, had called for a larger, $478 billion program.

The shortage of financing reflects a continuing disagreement in Washington over how to replenish the Highway Trust Fund, which is funded largely by a federal gas tax. The tax was last increased in 1993 and is not indexed to inflation.

That, together with greater fuel efficiency of modern cars, has led to shortfalls of more than $70 billion since 2008, which Congress has covered with general funds.