It may be a good idea, but it would be political suicide to vote for it. Not going to happen. Even if gas goes to $10 a gallon and it was obvious to everyone that peak oil is real and is here, it still won't happen:

"What?!!! Gas is way too expensive, and your solution to that problem is to make it cost even more?!!!"

Of course, using the money to repair roads would largely be a moot point by then.

Food shortages loom on the horizon; we are facing a financial system disaster because banks are looking more and more insolvent after the housing bubble and the credit derivatives boondoggle; debt levels for government, business and individuals are at historic highs; the fraudulent federal reserve banking system is printing money like there is no tomorrow, pushing prices, destroying the dollar; and the economic pie is about to shrink dramatically due both to oil depletion and dropping EROEI, and due to decades of government driven economic malinvestment.

And now the federal government is thinking of taking more of our diminishing wealth to squander on a road system that only horses and buggies will likely be using. Maybe you would be in a better position to fund your own energy future if you were not being kept down by huge taxes and an economic system rigged in favor of the privileged few at the expense of the many.

I think we, who are interested in this topic of energy, in varying degrees understand the problem of oil depletion, the connection between oil and the accelerated economic and population expansion of the last 70 years, and the likely future consequences of significantly falling oil production. I think it is arrogance on anyone's part to think that he knows which alternatives, already known or to be imagined, will solve the problems, and to think that solution should be imposed upon the rest of us. And it is extreme insanity to think that politicians can command solutions; witness Katrina and the ethanol debacle.

If we expect to minimize the damage from oil depletion, my view is that we will best be served to keep government out of the picture as much as possible. Individuals and businesses will react to the problem and look for alternatives. If there are solutions, they will come from free people, not from government plunder and control, or for someone trying to get government to impose his pet solution.

There is a tendency for people who are afraid to give up freedom for the promise of security. You saw this happen after 9/11 when we allowed intrusions on our liberty via such laws as the Patriot Acts, the Military Commissions Act and the illegal suspension of Habeas Corpus. We did not gain security, but we did lose freedom.

Certainly the economic future is frightening, but again, if we allow our fear to lead us to give up economic freedom in hopes for economic security, we will, as history demonstrates, have neither.

I can't agree that such a proposal for more government and less freedom via a $0.40 gas tax increase will benefit anyone other than bureaucrats and road contractors.

The great hope for those of us around here who think about these things is that inflation (meaning purchase cost of land, labor and capital) stays high enough ahead of tax and bond revenues to prevent further investment in infrastructure "upgrades" which generally involve planning for more traffic and high population growth rates.

I watch the work of the economist who works for the Association of General Contractors.

Looks like the construction sector is having their own set of problems related to rising costs, which makes it difficult to maintain and expand infrastructure.

A snippet from:

http://www.agc.org/galleries/economics/CIA08.pdf

AGC’s Construction Inflation Alert: Construction Costs: End of the Calm is Coming Soon
Oct., 2007

After years of minimal cost increases, prices of many construction materials skyrocketed from 2004 to mid-2006. Since mid-2006, some input prices have moderated, while others have fallen. But the cumulative increase in the producer price index (PPI) for construction inputs since December 2003 (28 percent through August 2007) remains more than double the 13 percent increase in the most common measure of overall inflation, the consumer price index (CPI) for all urban consumers. Labor costs, in contrast, have risen at similar rates for construction and for the private sector as a whole.

The cumulative difference matters because the estimates for many projects now being bid, especially public facilities, were prepared in 2003-2005 under the assumption that construction costs would escalate at the same rate as the CPI. That divergence explains why some projects are being canceled, delayed or redesigned.

In the next several months, the PPI for construction inputs, which covers items used up in construction such as diesel fuel as well as materials that go into a project, is expected to accelerate to a 3-5 percent annual rate of increase from the recent 1.5-3 percent range. By the end of 2008, and indefinitely thereafter, construction input costs are likely to be rising at 6-8 percent. Labor cost increases could top 5 percent by the end of 2007 and 5-6 percent in subsequent years.

On the other hand, congested gridlocked roads, long detours due to closed bridges, and playing pothole dodge-em might be just the formula to encourage more people to give mass transit a try.

The US economy cannot generate enough investment capital to cover the cost of Alan Drake's EOT scheme, AND a massive ramp up of renewables, AND more nukes, AND exploration and development of FF in every more difficult and expensive environments, AND coping with the impacts of global climate change along shorelines, etc. - AND have enough left to maintain and improve the existing, soon to become superfluous, highway system. We are going to have to do something that we do extremely badly in the US: make choices, and choose to do without something.

We've spent quite enough on the automobile already. Enough is enough.

Some poor consumer type will say "The problem is I am already paying too much, you wanna do what!". And that will carry the day.

Of course falling apart potholey roads are just what the 4WD pickup market needs. On the occasions when I drive the pickup, I needn't worry about such minor obstacles, but in the Prius its a different storey. Efficient vehicles need a decent road surface.

Interesting, more gasoline tax so that car drivers can pay for infrastructure damage caused by trucks:

Pavement damage is caused almost entirely by heavy trucks, not by passenger cars. One legal 80,000 lbs. GVW tractor-trailer truck does as much damage to road pavement as 9,600 cars. (Highway Research Board, NAS, 1962)

40 cents over 5 years is nothing, to make a difference in demand it would have to be at least 1$/gal now, probably more like 2$

Thank you mike for the truck induced highway damage comment. I wish I had a picture of Interstate 80 E of Cheyenne a few years back where the grooves of twin axle trucks abrogated travel in the right lane. Of that 18 cent tax only about 20% goes to mass transit.We need to electrify our transportation network and convert to light rail in corridors where it is feasible...NOW! We need to have a national inventory of roads and bridges to save and maintain and roads to either abandon or convert to gravel. Should we save Detroit auto jobs? No. Not as long as they give us 600 HP vettes and caddys that insult our sensibilities and mock our future. Let them build railroad cars and trolley cars. It's the least GM can do for destroying the trolley car system in the US 60 years ago. We will need mass transit networks that don't share track with the freight trains as well. So much track to lay, so little time.

This sounds like marketing ammo to justify drilling in ANWR and off the coasts.

How about a gasoline taxes to get our economy and military off of gasoline?

While we need investment in infrastructure, that should investment should not go in roads or any attempt to "improve" our highway system. It makes no sense to work towards a future that is just more of the same; effort should be directed to that infrastructure which will encourage transportation by means other than than the automobile. We need infrastructure which makes it possible to have largely car free cities. We don't need infrastructure which just perpetuates the failed and destructive suburban paradigm. Reduce traffic deaths by having less traffic, not wider highways that permit fast speeds which increase demand for petroleum use.

Seems fair. In Roman times there were toll taxes for those who used the roads. The people with the heavier vehicles use the most fuel and they might pay more for the roads. Those with light hybrids who have short commutes did little damage to the road and might pay less for the roads.

It needs to be understood that there are actually TWO motor fuel taxes, a federal tax and a state tax. The state taxes differ from a low of $0.264/gal (for gasoline) in Alaska to a high of $0.695/gal (diesel) in California.

The proposal is to raise the FEDERAL tax. The feds gather in this tax from around the country, then distribute it. Some of the distribution is by formula, but a lot is through the political process. Remember "earmarks"? Remember "pork barrel politics"? Well, you are looking at the number one revenue source for this stuff right here. It is this pork barrel that they are proposing to enlarge substantially.

A very small sliver of this pie goes to urban mass transit and to Amtrak; while we want to see more money go to those, and while this proposal does include that, if there are to be cuts during the legislative process these are exactly what are most likely to be targeted first. The vast majority of the money presently goes to the Interstate highway system; this pattern is not likely to change if an increase is enacted. More money to the Interstate system is exactly what we DON'T need right now. It is absolutely the worst priority.

There are indeed some Interstate bridges, etc., that do need repairs. The vast majority of traffic that would be at risk in these cases, and the vast majority of traffic that would benefit, is LOCAL traffic. Since the states do have their own source of fuel tax revenues, they could raise those tax rates themselves to pay for this to the extent that it really needs to be done.

While a few repairs to the Interstate system do need to be made, though, the real priority is to maintain the network of LOCAL roads, and to develop LOCAL mass transit systems, and to develop short-haul city-to-city passenger rail service (which often involves an entirely INTRASTATE route). All of this can and should be done with state fuel tax revenues. Why send those tax dollars to Washington instead, and then hope that somehow you'll get most of them back (the feds will keep their cut to cover the overhead costs of a bloated bureaucracy), and just maybe be allowed to use them for what is needed rather than what grandstanding congressman or senator wants?

There is a lot of work that needs to be done with our transport infrastructure, but almost all of that work needs to be at the state and local level. We probably DO need an increase in the motor fuel tax, but it is the STATE motor fuel tax rate that needs to be raised, not the federal. If anything, I would like to see the federal tax lowered, or even eliminated altogether, which would make more room for each state to do what it needs to do.