Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison reluctantly voted to extend the federal highway trust fund this week while complaining that Texas could lose $408 million because Congress refuses to adopt a more comprehensive transportation program.

Hutchison said the federal transportation program — in which Texas gets back about 92 cents of every $1 in federal gasoline taxes, making it a "donor" state — needs to be reformed, possibly allowing Texas to opt out.

But the senior Texas Republican senator, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said she voted for an 18-month extension of the highway trust fund primarily out of fear that it would become insolvent in August, which would have cut off all funding for the nation’s highways.

"Clearly we have an obligation to ensure the continuity of these important safety programs, as well as the very important highway funding that each state relies on to address their most pressing transportation needs," Hutchison said.

"Donor states like Texas should not be required to continue funding other states’ transportation needs for an additional 18 months at the expense of our own priorities," she said.

Earlier, Hutchison introduced a bill that would allow Texas and other states to opt out of the program. The Highway Fairness and Reform Act would allow states to opt out and get a rebate of fuel taxes collected within their borders.

But she may no longer be in Washington by the time Congress debates the issue, since she is expected to challenge Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary in March.

Perry’s take

In Austin, Perry agreed that federal highway policy needs to be fixed but said Hutchison’s proposal to allow states to opt out is flawed, spokeswoman Allison Castle said.

"The current system isn’t working," she said, adding that Texas actually gets back 84.7 cents per $1 sent to Washington. "We would rather Congress rewrite the federal authorization bill than extend the current broken one."

Perry also doesn’t think Hutchison seriously expects her opt-out proposal to pass Congress but instead is using it as a negotiating chip, Castle said.

"Sen. Hutchison has said herself it has no chance of passing," Castle said. "That’s not leadership."

Outlived its purpose?

The federal gas tax rate — now 18.4 cents per gallon — was created to build a nationwide highway network but is no longer used for that purpose, Hutchison said.

"The gas tax revenues of states like Texas, Arizona, Florida, Ohio and more could be spent on bike trails in Vermont or bridges in Madison County rather than on crumbling or congested highways in Miami or Cincinnati," Hutchison said.

U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House transportation committee, favors a three-month extension of federal funding. The compromise would get the fund out of its short-term crunch but still leave time for a debate about long-term transportation funding later this year.

The Texas Department of Transportation hasn’t analyzed how difficult it would be for Texas to opt out of the federal program, agency spokesman Christopher Lippincott said. At any given moment, dozens of road and transit programs across Texas are being funded by federal gas tax dollars.

"We’d all like to get back as much or more money that Texas puts in, but the reality is the current structure is going to be hard to change."