With the price of gasoline near record levels and consumers driving less, the National Conference of State Legislatures called on the U.S. Congress Friday to raise the federal gas tax to bolster the Highway Trust Fund.

That would seem to put Kansas legislators who are in the thick of re-election campaigns on the record as supporting a gas tax hike, when gas already is hovering at around $4 a gallon.

But lawmakers from both parties who attended the NLCS convention in New Orleans were quick to assure Kansas Liberty that they never would have voted in favor of the resolution.

“No way I would have supported that,” said Barbara Ballard, a Lawrence Democrat. “Who can afford to pay more for gas than we’re already paying?”

Republican Reps. Ray Merrick, Pat George and John Grange, and GOP Sen. Karin Brownlee also were quick to distance themselves from the NCSL resolution.

In fact, some legislators said there were completely unaware of the NCSL’s action until contacted by Kansas Liberty.

That’s because of the way the NCSL convention works.

Jeremy Meadows, the NCSL’s senior policy director for trade and transportation, said small committees of legislators are established to consider potential resolutions in various policy areas – such as education, transportation and health care.

Resolutions must be approved by three-quarters of state delegations making up the membership of a committee for a resolution to be sent to the floor for final consideration. Resolutions then must be approved by three-quarters of state delegations before they become NCSL policy priorities.

In the case of the gas tax, Kansas’ lone representative on the transportation committee, Grange, an El Dorado Republican, was participating in an aerial tour of the re-building of levees around New Orleans and was unable to attend the committee meeting.

Meadows said the transportation committee, in Grange’s absence, voted unanimously in favor of the gas tax increase resolution, so the item was placed on the consent agenda, meaning it was not slated for discussion during the final general session when resolutions were considered.

The unanimous vote by the committee in favor of the resolution, Meadows said, reflected an urgent need for transportation projects, even as the Highway Trust Fund that finances many such projects is soon to go broke.

Bridges are a pressing topic, following the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis after gusset plates holding the bridge together began to bend. The one-year anniversary of the tragedy is Friday.

“There’s a growing understanding that more investment in our transportation infrastructure is needed, not only for economic vitality but for safety reasons,” Meadows said.

The Kansas Department of Transportation agrees.

On Monday, KDOT released a report that indicated that a fifth of the bridges – 4,749 of 25,464 – in Kansas were either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

That does not mean the bridges are dangerous, however. It does mean that they cannot handle some kinds of traffic. A "structurally deficient" bridge, for example, is one that has weight limits and restricted speed limits. A "functionally obsolete" bridge refers to an older bridge that might be too narrow for some types of vehicles.

Typically, these are exactly the type of projects that might qualify for funds from the Highway Trust Fund. However, the highway fund is expected to be $3.2 billion in the red by Oct. 1.

Meadows said there are ongoing efforts to remedy the anticipated shortfall.

The Bush Administration has recommended that the Highway Fund borrow from its transit fund to cover this year’s shortage. Ironically, it is from the transit fund that Kansas City, Mo., hopes to receive funding for its proposed $70 million-a-mile light rail system.

In addition, Rep. Charles Rangel, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has suggested borrowing from the general fund to temporarily replenish the highway fund.

Neither of these is a long-range solution, though, and Meadows pointed out that the current federal highway funding program expires in 2009.

Meadows said the NCSL would be lobbying Congress to reauthorize federal funding for transportation projects.

“A big piece of that will be revenue and how taxes are collected and revenues are dispersed,” he said.

He said in addition to favoring a hike in the gas tax as a temporary patch to the highway fund deficit, the NCSL had voted in favor a gas tax based on consumption, rather than per-gallon.

“It would be more fair to charge for the use our roadways based on the miles a person drives instead of per-gallon,” he said.

 - Phil LaCerte

for KansasLiberty.com

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