McCaskill: Long-term transportation bill needed

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill told reporters Tuesday the Senate has worked hard to find some compromises on transportation funding.

"We've forged a bipartisan compromise that is going to provide longer-term certainty to highway funding in this country, and I hope we don't turn our back on that work," the Missouri Democrat said during a 25-minute conference call with reporters.

"It's not an easy task to get Democrats and Republicans to agree on things like this."

However, the U.S. House of Representatives won't debate the Senate's plan immediately - even though the latest bill extending the current federal transportation funding law expires at midnight Friday.

"It's my understanding that the House will be sending us a two- to three-month extension, and then they are going to leave town," McCaskill said.

"But, hopefully, the work we're doing on this bill will actually contribute to a solution, when the House returns from their August work period at home."

The problem is fairly easy to explain: Federal transportation dollars come from the Highway Trust Fund, a dedicated source that gets most of its money from the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax (and 24.4 cents-per-gallon tax on diesel fuel) that last was raised in 1993.

McCaskill acknowledged that's a shrinking source.

"When you have fuel efficiency as one of your public policy goals, and you are building much more fuel-efficient cars," she said, "then you're creating a system where you're going to have a shortfall - because they're not going to sell as much gas.

"So, we're going to have to, as a nation, decide - do we want gas to be even more expensive, or do we want to look at some of these other methods of funding?"

McCaskill said senators are discussing a number of funding options - including "additional taxes on oil at the well," Internet sales taxes (comparable to the taxes paid at a "brick-and-mortar" store) with some of that money going to the Highway Trust Fund and "a lot of ideas about tax reform."

The problem is compounded by state funding issues, McCaskill said.

"We've got to figure out what we're doing in Missouri because, in the very near future, Missouri's not going to pull down their share of money, because they won't have the match (for federal funds)," she said. "And that's where, I think, it's time for a gut-check in Missouri.

"Missourians need to be presented with the alternatives, and allow them to choose which is the most desirable."

She said the options could include converting Interstate 70 to a toll road, raising the state's 17.4 cents-per-gallon fuels tax or some other method of funding.

She didn't discuss the recent, voter-rejected efforts to raise fuels taxes and sales taxes to provide more money for road and bridge construction and maintenance.

"Obviously, something's going to have to give in Missouri, or we're going to be left even further behind," McCaskill said.

Missouri boasts the second and third largest railroad switching yards in the country (Kansas City and St. Louis), two major airports and one of the busiest sections of interstate highway (I-70 heading west from St. Louis).

If the House and Senate can agree on a bill that is - or is similar to - the measure currently being debated by the U.S. Senate, McCaskill said, "The thing I like about it the most is, it's not a patch.

"(If it's passed), MoDOT can, actually, plan for Year 2 and Year 3, instead of trying to look at these short-term patches that make it so difficult to actually keep up with the road projects that are so desperately needed."