DATE: Tuesday, March 11, 1997               TAG: 9703110006

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: BY ROBERT E. MARTINEZ 

                                            LENGTH:  104 lines

VIRGINIA DEMANDS ITS FAIR SHARE OF GAS-TAX DOLLAR

As all Americans do, Virginians pay a federal gas tax each time they pull up to the pump. They faithfully pay the tax with the expectation that it will be used to improve and maintain Virginia's highways because gasoline taxes are user fees, designed to sustain our roadways with user contributions.

Yet the method of financing big parts of the network has become increasingly inequitable. Today, states collect taxes from motorists, then send it to Washington, which distributes the funds according to arcane and irrelevant formulas that are both needlessly bureaucratic and outdated.

The facts are that Virginia receives only 79 cents for every dollar sent to the federal highway trust fund. Virginia is one of more than 20 ``donor'' states that consistently receive far less in federal transportation money than their residents pay in gasoline taxes. Meanwhile, some states are receiving more than twice the funds they contribute. This inequality has turned our country into ``have'' and ``have-not'' states.

When the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) was adopted, it represented a new vision for the national transportation program. ISTEA contains much to applaud. But there are also critical elements that need to be addressed. One is the funding formulas that penalize high-growth states trying to deal with rapidly increasing populations and expanding economies, such as Virginia.

During the 1980s, Virginia's traffic (and corresponding transportation needs) grew at a rate of 4.8 percent each year, almost 40 percent faster than the nation as a whole, yet we continue to receive far less than a fair return on our user-fee contributions to the federal Highway Trust Fund. When the formula used to distribute highway funds uses 1980, not 1990, census figures, it's no surprise Virginia doesn't get its fair share of highway funds.

In 1995 alone, Virginia contributed nearly 35 percent more to the Highway Trust Fund than it received back. The commonwealth has pressing transportation infrastructure needs of its own, and the nearly $150 million redistributed to other states could address some of those needs.

Even the federal government's own watchdog agency - the General Accounting Office - believes the federal formula used to distribute transportation funds is outdated and unresponsive to needs. The GAO issued a report in November 1995 that concluded:

``. . . some of the factors used in the formula's calculations for major road programs are based, in part, on outdated information, are unresponsive to changing conditions and often do not reflect the current extent or use of the nation's highway system.''

Continuing to use these archaic provisions increasingly insulates federal funding apportionments from transportation reality and hurts Virginia.

During the past two years, Virginia, in partnership with several other states, has led an effort to establish a new, fair, streamlined proposal for the reauthorization of the surface transportation program. Called the ``Streamlined Transportation Efficiency Program for the 21st Century,'' or STEP 21, the program is supported by a coalition of nearly all donor states in the nation, as well as other states interested in the streamlined program structure.

The STEP 21 approach for reauthorization is simple. It builds upon the progress made in ISTEA, yet it streamlines the multitude of current programs into just two: the National Highway System (NHS) and the Streamlined Surface Transportation Program (SSTP). The NHS would receive 40 percent of total funding; the SSTP would receive the remaining 60 percent. Our program would retain eligibility for all currently eligible ISTEA activities, preserve the funding earmarked for large Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) so that urban jurisdictions would continue to maintain the same role in approvals they currently have, and preserve the transferability provisions included in ISTEA.

Formulas for the two programs would be simple, logical and technically sound. The NHS formula is based on factors that address the size and use of a state's highway system (lane miles, vehicle miles traveled and diesel-fuel consumption as a measure of truck volume). The SSTP would distribute funding based on each state's contributions of the Highway Trust Fund; in other words, a dollar in, a dollar out.

Virginia's Sen. John W. Warner has introduced legislation, titled the ISTEA Integrity Restoration Act, that would implement the goals of the STEP 21 coalition and return user fees to those who actually contributed them. States would no longer have to jump through federal hoops to get their share of fuel-tax money. The legislation would bring common sense to our national transportation policy. This approach recognizes that there remain legitimate national interests in transportation, such as interstate commerce and national security. And its funding provisions guarantee a high rate of return (a true 95 percent minimum) on each state's share of payments to the Highway Trust Fund.

If the STEP 21 proposal were to pass Congress, the commonwealth would receive at least $60 million more each year, even if no additional money is spent on transportation nationwide. If the next federal-aid program is established with the level of funding requested in Sen. Warner's bill, Virginia would receive well over $250 million additional each year. With STEP 21, all of Virginia wins. The state would have additional funds to distribute statewide, and the MPOs in our large urbanized areas would be provided even more funds that are currently sub-allocated to use at their own discretion than they received under ISTEA.

Giving states and localities more flexibility to determine how to spend their own gas-tax money would make them more accountable to their own citizens. The federal government has a legitimate interest in good roads built to high standards, but it does not automatically follow that Washington must decide how every dollar is spent.

After decades of routing most important highway decisions through Washington, it's time to let more of those decisions be made by the states. As Congress takes up a highway spending bill this year, Sen. Warner's proposal deserves support. MEMO: Robert Martinez is Virginia secretary of transportation. KEYWORDS: GAS TAX

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