In a recent article published in Innovation NewsBrief entitled “A Conservative Vision for the Future of the Highway Trust Fund,” Ken Orski shared heartening data, indicating that the states are stepping up to fill the transportation funding gap left by a stagnated federal program. According to Mr. Orski, several states “have taken steps to significantly increase their transportation budgets this year.” He claims that 25 states enacted transportation funding this year, with another 16 in the process of doing so, “generating billions of additional dollars” for local transit and highway projects.

If states were generating billions of additional dollars, this would represent a significant change to long-term trends. According to a 2014 Pew Charitable Trust study entitled “Intergovernmental Challenges in Surface Transportation Funding” state spending on transportation dropped by 20 percent between 2002 and 2012 compared to a drop of four percent at the federal level (Figure 1). This tracks closely with the long-term decline in gas tax revenues across all levels of government, which peaked in 2004 (Figure 2).

We examined Mr. Orski’s data and confirmed five cases of states that have managed to pass legislation to create new or additional sources of dedicated revenue for transportation. For example, both the Utah Senate and House agreed on a measure that will increase the gas tax by 5 cents-per-gallon beginning January 2016, as well as add a 12 percent tax on the wholesale price of gasoline, which are estimated to generate more than $17 million in 2016 and nearly $53 million in 2017.[1] The Georgia (7 cents-per-gallon increase for gasoline and 10 cents-per-gallon increase for diesel), Idaho (7 cent-per-gallon increase and increase in vehicle registration fees), Iowa (10 cent-per-gallon increase), Nebraska (6 cent-per-gallon increase), and South Dakota (6 cent-per-gallon increase) legislatures have all passed transportation-related revenues in order to pay for transportation projects in the 2015 general session.

However, of the 25 states listed at the end of Mr. Orski’s article, which he refers to as having “enacted transportation legislation,” 11 are really states with bills that either failed to pass or have yet to be put to a vote, or with proposals from the executive branch that have not been approved by the legislature.[2] And not all states are creating “additional dollars” through tax increases or bond programs. Most of the states listed in Mr. Orski’s summary are merely appropriating funds as part of their biennial or annual budgetary processes; and, in some cases, they are actually decreasing the amount of money going towards transportation. Here are just a few examples of states that Mr. Orski listed as having enacted state legislation, with clarifications indicating what is actually going on (quotes are from the original Orksi article):

Montana: “A bipartisan group of state senators introduced a bill that calls for spending $50 million in cash and $50 million in bond proceeds over two years on infrastructure.” However, the bill is currently listed as “probably dead” on the state legislature website, with the most recent action being a failed 3^rd reading vote on April 27.[3]The House and Senate adjourned Sine Die on April 28, 2015.

Tennessee: “Gov. Bill Haslam released a three-year transportation program featuring $1.2 billion in infrastructure investments… The budget ensures that projects already underway won’t be negatively impacted by decisions out of Washington, he added.” This $1.2 billion is budgeted, not yet appropriated, to the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Moreover, the 2016 program only includes two new projects – the rest consist of delayed projects carried over from previous years’ transportation programs. These projects were delayed or halted because of the uncertainty of the Highway Trust Fund’s solvency, which supports the majority of the projects contained in Haslam’s program.[4]

Washington: “The state legislature approved and sent to the governor a $7.6 billion transportation budget to keep existing transportation programs going.” This bill, which appropriates funds for the 2016-2018 budget, represents a decrease in spending. It is over a billion dollars less than the 2013-2015 biennial transportation budget ($8.7 billion).[5]

Unfortunately it appears that, contrary to what Mr. Orski is asserting, in general states are struggling to meet their transportation needs in the wake of stagnant federal funding.[6] His proposed solution to the federal HTF crisis is to reduce the federal program from the current $50 billion a year to $40 billion to match incoming fuel tax receipts, allowing for states to fill the gap. Mr. Orski suggests shifting activities such as TIGER grants, Transportation Alternatives, and “other expenditures of lesser federal priority” out of the HTF program, implying that these programs can add up to $10 billion in cuts and the extra money generated by these new state transportation bills can pick up the slack. But there are some clear flaws to this logic, namely that the TIGER grants receive congressional appropriation outside of the HTF (and, therefore, cannot be shifted out of it), and the Transportation Alternatives Program accounts for only $1 billion in annual spending. Removing this one program from the HTF would still leave a $9 billion gap in the HTF that would need to be filled with other federal cuts to core highway and transit programs.

In Eno’s 2014 paper The Life and Death of the Highway Trust Fund, we concluded that aligning spending with fuel tax revenues is a preferable alternative to the current approach of irregular general fund bailouts. However, the data on state actions so far indicate that we cannot simply move towards a smaller federal program and assume that states will fill the gap in terms of essential transportation infrastructure investment. Eno’s and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s 2012 joint report The Consequences of Reduced Federal Transportation Investmentconcluded that most states, even those with large populations in metropolitan areas, would not be able to fill a funding gap left by federal cuts in transportation. If we are going to move towards a smaller federal program (which is not recommended) it is critical to include incentives that can help states overcome the substantial barriers to creating new funds for transportation investment. There is no evidence that states will be able to fill the massive gap without this help.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Eno Center for Transportation.