Max Baucus: “this has an intriguing, alluring, siren call: Let the Governors and State legislatures divert it. It sounds good on the…”

“this has an intriguing, alluring, siren call: Let the Governors and State legislatures divert it. It sounds good on the surface. But like a lot of issues, let's stop and think about the actual consequences. First of all, when we passed the last highway bill, even though we increased the amount of dollars to go from Federal gasoline taxes into the trust fund, back out to the States for highway construction, we all knew we had not even begun to fully take care of our Nation's roads, highways, and bridges. And we have not. The Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, has done study after study that shows we only meet one-half of our Nation's needs-- one-half. Some of you saw on television last night the report about all the red lights, people caught up in traffic. We know about the potholes. We know about roads and bridges and highways that are not up to snuff. What do we also know? We also know that our highways, as good as they are, are not as durable and as lasting as, say, some European highways, German highways. Why is that? That is because so much more research and development and expense in dollars goes into that highway system to make those the best in the world. We have problems. We think we have a good highway system--it is good, but the Department of Transportation has concluded, from study after study, we are only halfway there, even with ISTEA that we passed a couple of years ago.”