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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2017
Crumbling roads, bridges bring higher taxes, fees
By DAVID A. LIEB
Associated Press
For the first time in nearly
30 years, Tennessee will soon
tax motorists more to fill their
tanks. So will California, Indi-
ana and Montana.
Lawmakers across the U.S.
have approved new proposals
this year to pay for transporta-
tion improvements, including
tax hikes, vehicle fee increases
and bond packages. Those
measures extended an existing
trend to a new milestone: Two-
thirds of all states have stepped
up highway funding over the
past five years.
It’s happening in both Dem-
ocratic- and Republican-led
states as their transportation
departments strain to overcome
backlogs deepened by the last
recession. And lawmakers are
acting regardless of promises
from President Donald Trump
for a $1 trillion national infra-
structure program that his
administration has yet to detail.
Some state officials doubt
that Trump’s plan will make
much of a difference when it
comes to repairing and replac-
ing thousands of old bridges or
repaving and widening count-
less miles of congested roads.
“We really don’t know
what’s in it. We haven’t seen
anything,” said Tennessee state
Rep. Eddie Smith, a Repub-
lican from Knoxville. But
“it sounded like there wasn’t
going to be a lot that we would
directly benefit from.”
Trump has said his plan will
depend partly on spurring pri-
vate investment in infrastruc-
ture. That could include tax
incentives for those who sub-
sidize big-ticket projects, with
an expectation that investors
could recoup costs through
tolls or fares on roads, bridges,
rail systems or airports. Ten-
nessee currently uses neither
tolls nor bonds for its highway
system.
Two dozen states
At least two dozen states
adopted higher fuel or sales
taxes to pay for transportation
improvements.
“That’s highly unusual for
that many states to be in agree-
ment about raising taxes, and
these are oftentimes fairly con-
servative states as well,” said
Carl Davis, research director
at the Institute on Taxation and
Economic Policy, a Washing-
ton-based nonprofit think tank.
The U.S. has an $836 bil-
lion backlog of needed repairs
and improvements to roads
and bridges, plus an additional
$90 billion backlog for pub-
lic transit systems, accord-
ing to the Federal Highway
Administration.
Those needs have grown
as the money available from
the Federal Highway Trust
Fund for states fell by more
than 9 percent from 2010 to
2015, according to an Associ-
ated Press analysis of the most
recent figures from the high-
way administration.
A 2015 federal law
increases Highway Trust Fund
money for states by $20 billion
over five years through tradi-
tional matching funds and new
competitive grants. But some
financial analysts project that
will merely hold funding flat
when accounting for inflation.
States are “bellying up to
David Pardo/The Daily Press
Officials look over the scene at Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass, Calif., where part of the freeway collapsed due to heavy rain in February.
RECENT HIGHWAY FUNDING
PLANS PASSED IN THE PACIFIC
NORTHWEST, WEST COAST
CALIFORNIA
2017: Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signs a law projected
to raise $52.4 billion over 10 years for roads, bridges,
public transit and biking and walking trails. Gasoline taxes
will rise by 12 cents per gallon in November and by 19.5
cents by 2020. Diesel taxes will rise by a total of 20 cents
per gallon, and diesel sales taxes by 4 percent.
IDAHO
2014: Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter signs a law re-
directing part of the state’s cigarette tax revenues to repay-
ing highway bonds and addressing part of an estimated
$262 million annual backlog in road maintenance. The
transfer was projected to be about $13 million in 2017.
2015: Otter signs a law raising the fuel tax by 7 cents a
gallon and vehicle registration fees by $21. It’s projected to
generate $95 million annually for transportation. The new
law also allows a percentage of the year-end surplus in
the state’s general fund to be used for transportation.
2017: Otter allows legislation to become law without
his signature authorizing about $300 million in bonds
for roads to be repaid with future federal money. It also
redirects 1 percent of sales tax revenues from the general
revenue to roads, raising about $15 million annually.
WASHINGTON
2015: Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee signs a law raising the
fuel tax by 11.9 cents a gallon over two years. The new
law also authorizes additional bonding and raises various
fees, including on vehicle registrations. The package is
projected to generate $16 billion over 16 years for state
and local roads, transit and bike and pedestrian routes. It
also lets local voters increase taxes for public transit.
the bar and actually increasing
their own gas taxes to make up
for the lack of an increase of
federal spending,” said Julius
Vizner, an assistant vice pres-
ident at Moody’s Investors
Service.
Republican-led South Caro-
lina, which has long resisted tax
increases, is among those seri-
ously considering a gas tax hike
this year. Separate tax propos-
als have passed the House and
Senate, even though Republi-
can Gov. Henry McMaster has
threatened a veto and wrote
a letter to Trump in February
asking for $5 billion in federal
funding for infrastructure.
South Carolina House
Majority Leader Gary Simrill
said the federal money would
be welcome but doesn’t pro-
vide a long-term solution. The
state’s Department of Trans-
portation wants an additional
$1.1 billion annually over the
next 25 years to improve roads.
“People who are waiting on
the federal government usu-
ally just get old and tired,” said
Simrill, a Republican who has
led the House’s road-fund-
ing efforts for several years.
“South Carolina cannot wait on
the federal government to take
care of our problem.”
Federal tax
The federal gasoline tax has
David Pardo/The Daily Press
Crews look over a tractor trailer and a San Bernardino County Fire Department fire en-
gine that fell from southbound Interstate 15 where part of the freeway collapsed due to
heavy rain in the Cajon Pass, Calif., in February.
remained at 18.3 cents a gallon
since 1993, breaking a record
this spring for its longest gap
between increases. The last
record was set when the tax
remained at 4 cents from Octo-
ber 1959 through March 1983.
Trump recently said he
could consider higher fuel
taxes as part of his infrastruc-
ture plan, although that could
meet resistance from fellow
Republicans in Congress.
Only about a dozen states
have gone longer than the fed-
eral government without rais-
ing their motor fuel taxes.
One of those was Tennes-
see, where Republican Gov.
Bill Haslam signed a bill last
month to phase in a 6 cent-
a-gallon gas tax hike and a
10-cent diesel tax increase. To
win passage in the Republi-
can-dominated state, the fuel
tax hikes were paired with tax
cuts on groceries, investment
gains, corporate manufacturers
and disabled veterans so that
supporters could tout them as
“pocketbook neutral.”
The transportation plan in
Republican-led Indiana raises
an average of $1.2 billion annu-
ally by increasing gas taxes
and vehicle fees and gradu-
ally shifting fuel sales taxes
from the state’s general fund to
infrastructure.
California’s $5 billion
annual plan raises fuel taxes
and vehicle fees to pay for
repairs to state and local roads,
while also providing money for
public transit and biking and
walking trails.
Montana, which suspended
several road projects last year
because of funding uncer-
tainties, recently approved its
first fuel tax increase in nearly
a quarter century. Without
the tax hike, the state could
have missed out on some fed-
eral funding because it lacked
enough local money to match
it.
Although California’s plan
was passed largely by Dem-
ocrats, many other transpor-
tation funding measures have
enjoyed bipartisan support.
That’s partly because they have
been backed by the business
community as economic neces-
sities, Davis said.
Wins at polls
Transportation plans also
have enjoyed widespread
success at the polls. Vot-
ers approved 269 of the 361
transportation funding mea-
sures placed on the 2016 bal-
lot by states, counties, cities,
townships and other districts,
according to the Ameri-
can Road and Transporta-
tion Builders Association. The
nearly three-quarters approval
rate was right on the 10-year
average for transportation bal-
lot measures.
Transportation
funding
measures also are pending in
other legislatures, including
Louisiana, Minnesota, Okla-
homa and Oregon. A gas tax
hike was defeated in the Mis-
souri House this year and
another was vetoed by New
Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez,
a Republican.
Shhh. Hear the rustle of grass? Not so much now in US parks
By SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
call of the wild is getting
harder to hear.
Peaceful, natural sounds—
bird songs, rushing rivers and
rustling grass — are some-
times being drowned out by
noise from people in many
of America’s protected parks
and wilderness areas, a new
study finds.
Scientists measured sound
levels at 492 places — from
city parks to remote fed-
eral wilderness. They calcu-
lated that in nearly two-thirds
of the Lower 48’s parks, the
noise can at times be twice
the natural background level
because of airplanes, cars,
logging, mining and oil and
gas drilling.
That increase can harm
wildlife, making it harder for
them to find food or mates,
MORE ONLINE
Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org
and make it harder for people
to hear those natural sounds,
the researchers said. Colorado
State University biologist
George Wittemyer said peo-
ple hear only half the sounds
that they would in natural
silence.
“They’re being drowned
out,” said Wittemyer, a co-au-
thor of the research.
In about 1 in five pub-
lic lands, there’s a tenfold
increase in noise pollution,
according to the study in
Thursday’s journal Science .
“It’s something that’s sort
of happening slowly,” Witte-
myer said.
Except for city parks,
though, the researchers are
not talking about sound lev-
els that people would con-
National Park Service
A National Park Service staffer sets up an acoustic recording
station on Going-to-the-Sun Road to capture the impact of
traffic on acoustic conditions in Glacier National Park, Mont.
sider unusually loud. Even the
tenfold increases they write
about are often the equivalent
of changing from the quiet
of a rural area to a still pretty
silent library.
But that difference masks
a lot of sounds that are cru-
cial, especially to birds seek-
ing mates and animals trying
to hunt or avoid being hunted,
Wittemyer said. And it does
make a difference for peace of
mind for people, he said.
“Being able to hear the
birds, the waterfalls, the ani-
mals running through the
grasslands ... the wind going
through the grass,” Wittemyer
said. “Those are really valu-
able and important sounds
for humans to hear and help
in their rejuvenation and their
self-reflection.”
For study lead author
Rachel Buxton, a Colorado
State conservation biology
researcher, it can be personal.
She points to a Thanksgiving
weekend hike last year with
her husband in the La Gar-
ita Wilderness in southern
Colorado.
“We went to escape the
crowds. We went to be totally
isolated and have a real wil-
derness experience,” Buxton
recalled. “As we’re hiking,
aircraft goes overhead. You’re
walking along and you can
hear the jet coming for ages.”
The research team, which
includes a special unit of the
National Park Service, not
only measured sounds across
the U.S., but they also used
elaborate computer programs
and artificial learning systems
to determine what sounds
were natural and which were
made by people.
“The study makes perfect
sense to me,” George Mason
University biology professor
David Luther, who wasn’t part
of the research. He said in an
email that he’s noticed more
noise at many sites through-
out the U.S.
“Olympic National Park
is currently suffering high
amounts of noise pollution
from military flight trainings
low over the park and visitors
have been complaining loudly
about the diminished wilder-
ness experience,” he wrote.
But there are still some
places where you can get away
from it all, Buxton said, high-
lighting Great Sand Dunes
National Park in Colorado.