America’s Highway Fund Is Running Out of Money. Congress Wants To Spend New Funds on Not Fixing Highways.

As the national debt rises ever higher, Congress is gearing up to pass an enormous infrastructure spending bill.

Earlier this week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released the BUILD America 250 Act. The sprawling 1000-page bill combines some hits—including provisions to streamline environmental reviews of infrastructure projects—with some obvious misses.

Lawmakers claim that the bill would strengthen the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for both road maintenance and mass transit investments, by levying a new registration fee on electric vehicles (E.V.) and plug-in hybrids. But Marc Scribner, senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this site), tells Reason that it “won’t come close to eliminating the revenue-outlay gap,” since the bill fails to rein in the “irresponsible spending” that has doomed the fund to insolvency by 2028. Scribner’s assessment seems to be shared by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which finds that although the E.V. fee could raise around $30 billion in the next decade, “the Highway Trust Fund will remain severely out of balance.”

“This may well be the last federal highway bill,” Scribner warns.

If it is, then Congress sure isn’t making the most of it. Throughout the bill, there are several provisions that have little to do with building smooth roads and sturdy bridges.

For instance, in its current form, the BUILD America 250 Act would legally require any public-facing establishment larger than 800 square feet to allow commercial delivery drivers to use its bathroom. If a store’s owner had an employee-only policy for their toilet, or were worried about the cleaning costs associated with its use by delivery drivers, or were just plain stingy and particular about who they wanted on their property, they would be out of luck. This might sound like an odd matter for Congress to involve itself in, with the full weight of the law behind it, but Scribner assures Reason that, “yes, the bathroom access thing is real.” And the exemptions it outlines, he says, are “pretty narrow”—bathroom access would be required as long as it “would not pose an obvious security risk to the…establishment.”

Even more astounding, Scribner says, is “the perennial congressional interest in Amtrak food and beverage service.” Indeed, the bill would require the comptroller general to conduct a review of Amtrak’s snack offerings, including their adherence to the new Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) dietary guidelines and “the feasibility of providing traditional dining to all passengers” on Amtrak trains. After the comptroller general files her report, Amtrak would be required to review it in an internal committee made up of delegates from the company itself, organized labor, “nonprofit organizations representing Amtrak passengers,” and state governments.

In an email to Reason, Ross Marchand, executive director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, characterizes the food-and-beverage review as “a complete waste of taxpayer dollars” and thinks “lawmakers should have Amtrak focus less on tinkering with its current fresh vegetable crudité offerings and more on its $47 billion repair backlog.”

And then there’s the yellow paint. Tucked in the bill is a provision that directs the transportation secretary to study the feasibility of buying solely American-made yellow paint for road and highway markings, in line with federal Buy American requirements. With only one factory in the country that makes the right kind of paint for the job, this part of the bill—if passed—would amount to a handout for Sun Chemical and its facility in Muskegon, Michigan. In February, John Nichols, the union president at the plant, told the local ABC affiliate that these Buy American provisions would bring 20 new jobs to the factory.

Marchand says that “paint-specific figures are hard to come by, but…because domestic procurement requirements result in a 5.6 percent increase in taxpayer costs, a wider push toward ‘Buy American’ for pavement marking would put taxpayers on the line for an extra $200 million per year.”

However, Scribner cautions that mere “studies” like the one in this bill are often an indication that “the supporters of whatever measure…being studied lost the debate for inclusion.” So it may be a while before Congress actually appropriates the money to buy the paint.

Given the sorry state of the Highway Trust Fund, one might expect lawmakers to apply serious fiscal discipline or try novel ways to fund road and bridge upgrades. Instead, Congress seems intent on maintaining the status quo with another piece of legislation that authorizes wildly reckless spending and threatens more in the future.