Transportation bill allocates $26 billion to California

Retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who joined hands with conservative Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, in a months-long drive to break through conservative antipathy in the House to increasing government spending on domestic programs, counted the legislation as a major achievement when it was announced late Tuesday.

“It was a mammoth task to complete work on this bill,” Boxer, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said, noting that bike and pedestrian paths, typically a big source of friction with Republicans, will share the bounty.

Instead of securing a stable source of dedicated revenue, congressional negotiators scoured the budget for obscure alternatives, from raiding the Federal Reserve’s cushion against bank losses to revoking the passports of citizens behind on their taxes by $50,000 or more in an effort to get them to pay up.

Both parties have shunned an obvious source of ongoing funding by refusing to raise the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gasoline tax — reflecting intense voter hostility to any increase — meaning that money to repair the nation’s deteriorating transportation systems will lag even further behind needs when the bill expires in five years, said Richard Auxier, a research associate at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Caltrans issued a statement saying it was “encouraged” by the legislation, adding, “the current method of stop-gap funding drives up costs for state highway programs and makes rational planning impossible.”