How about more tolls and higher gas taxes

April 21, 2008

Pat Driscoll, San Antonio Express-News

Building more toll roads and leasing some to private corporations will not be enough to keep traffic moving on highways, a ranking U.S. House transportation committee member said this morning.

Gas taxes will have to be raised, and it'll take a united front from Democrats and Republicans to make it happen, U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, told more 1,000 people at the Texas Transportation Forum in Austin.

"We know, there's got to be an increase in the gas tax eventually," she said.

The 18.4-cent a gallon federal tax needs to go up at least a nickel, Johnson said, and even that would be woefully short. States also need to boost rates.

Many Texas leaders, notably Gov. Rick Perry, have stood in the way of raising the state's 20-cent a gallon tax, which like the federal rate has been the same since the early 1990s.

"We'll just have to visit with the governor," Johnson said.

The congresswoman, who's been on the transportation committee since 1993 when she was elected to Congress, has been working with Republican Joe Barton and a handful of other congressman from Texas since last year to come up with a bi-partisan list of recommendations for transportation funding.

Pushing for higher gas taxes has to be a joint effort because, she joked, because coming from a Democrat it'll sound like an old tax-and-spend ploy, while coming from a Republican it'll sound like a plot to line the pockets of political pals.

And yes, the working group's recommendations will include tolls and privatization.

"If we're going to build anything new, we've got to have tolls," Johnson said. "There is no money."

Speaking tonight: U.S. Rep. John Mica, ranking Republican on the House transportation committee.