Missouri senators could vote to raise fuels taxes this week - then send the bill to the House for its approval.
Senate Transportation Chairman Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, sponsors a bill that would raise the state's tax - currently 17.3 cents on each gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel sold in the state - by 2 cents a gallon over each of the next three years.
"I support Sen. Libla and his efforts to raise the tax in a way that would help us make sure that we get the federal match," Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, told reporters, before lawmakers went home for the weekend.
The tax has been the same since 1996 - the end of a phased-in 6-cent increase that began in 1992.
Because the tax is charged on each gallon of fuel sold, not on the price, it has remained the same whether that gallon cost $2, $3, $4 or $4.50.
If Missouri had included an inflation adjustment, the tax now would be 25 cents a gallon.
Under Libla's proposal, the tax would climb only to 23.3 cents a gallon by 2017.
Three years after the law goes into effect, it requires the state to begin adjusting for inflation, something lawmakers didn't do 23 years ago.
Missouri voters in 1996 changed the Constitution so lawmakers could raise taxes by a small amount each year without going to a statewide vote.
So, the General Assembly could adopt a 2-cent fuels tax increase each year as long as the total increase was below the ceiling, currently about $80 million.
Transportation officials have argued Missouri's 34,000 miles of roads and 10,400 bridges make up the seventh-largest highway system in the nation, but transportation revenues rank 46th in the United States.
Also, MoDOT's current revenues mean, beginning in the 2016-17 state business year, the department will have only about $325 million a year for new maintenance and repair projects around the state. It needs at least $485 million a year to maintain the system in its current conditions, as well as match all the federal money available.
Currently, federal law sets the match at $1 in state money for every $3 in federal money, for building and maintaining roads on the federal system - the interstates and the U.S. highways like 50, 54 and 63 in Mid-Missouri.
If Missouri doesn't have enough money to leverage all the federal dollars, they are distributed to other states under the federal rules.
MoDOT Director Dave Nichols said earlier this year an increase of at least 5 or 6 cents is needed just to get to the $485 million a year maintenance level.
"We've got the seventh largest highway system in the country, and everyone who is driving a vehicle has a vehicle that is more fuel efficient than the cars were 10 and 20 years ago," Dempsey said. "We have a consumption-based source to take care of our transportation system - and we've got to have enough money to maintain our roads and bridges.
"If we don't, the consequences will be drastic."
However, at least one group wants to block that tax-increase vote.
In a Friday news release, the group Missouri Alliance for Freedom warned "the same office holders who run for office branding themselves as anti-tax, limited government conservatives are now advancing higher taxes to pay for transportation."
The group pointed out Missourians rejected a 10-year sales tax increase for transportation by a 59.18 percent margin to 40.82 percent.
"If you are one of the 60 percent of Missourians who said no new taxes last August," Ryan Johnson, Missouri Alliance for Freedom's president, said, "I suggest you look up your senator and call him/her as soon as possible to let her/him know that you haven't changed your mind. Tell them to not raise your taxes."
Part of the opposition to last year's proposal was its designation for some of the money raised to be used for other transportation modes, including hiking and biking paths.
However, a major part of the opposition last year was aimed at big trucks - that trucking companies would not have to pay their "fair share," even though trucks do the most damage to the roads - especially the state highways they use primarily.
Raising the fuels tax would affect trucks as well as cars.