Graves: All options on table for infrastructure bill, but gas tax doubtful

Graves says a gas tax increase probably won't pass this House of Representatives 

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) cast doubt on the likelihood of funding infrastructure improvements with a gas tax increase, during a March 6 Capitol Hill briefing with county officials. “I don’t think we can get a gas tax passed through the House of Representatives right now,” he said. “We could look at (vehicle miles traveled), maybe possibly some sort of indexing component. I don’t think we ought to even try (with the gas tax). Everything is on the table in terms of funding the highway trust fund moving forward.”

Graves is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, Committee on Transportation Infrastructure. He said funding an infrastructure package is the transportation committee’s top priority after Federal Aviation Authority reauthorization, but he expected the congressional infrastructure deal to be notably different from President Trump’s proposal, which leverages $200 billion in federal funding to attract a total of $1.5 trillion in total investment.

Graves said he wanted to avoid any funding mechanism that would present motorists with a single tax bill at the end of the year, crediting fuel taxes with the pay-as-you-go method. But he was not otherwise enthusiastic about fuel taxes’ viability as automobile technology improves.

“I have a problem with fuel taxes anyway because we have a lot of vehicles on the road that aren’t buying gas or are hybrids and fuel efficiency is getting better and better all the time. It’s regressive,” he said.

Graves added that tolling didn’t excite him either as an infrastructure funding mechanism.

“I don’t like paying for something twice,” he said.