Panel urges 50% jump in gas taxes to pay for highways

WASHINGTON — A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel-fuel taxes is being urged by a federal commission to pay for highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is the second group in a year to call for higher fuel taxes.

With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax and 24.4-cent-a-gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road and transit programs.

In a report expected in late January, members of the infrastructure-financing commission said they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel fuel tax by 12 to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel-tax rates to inflation.

The commission also will recommend that states raise fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.

"I'm not excited about a gas-tax increase, but the reality is our current gas tax doesn't pay for upkeep of the system we have now," said Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, and a member of the highway-revenue commission. "We can either let the roads go to hell or we can pay more."

According to a draft of the financing commission's recommendations, the nation also needs to move to a new system that taxes motorists according to how much they use roads.

Such a mileage-based system would mean equipping every vehicle with a device that uses global positioning satellites and transponders to record how many miles the vehicle has been driven, the type of roads and time of day.