Mineta Considers Tying Fuel Taxes To Price Index

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img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>The Bush administration will not propose increasing fuel taxes to fund bridge and highway construction programs in legislation next year to reauthorize surface transportation legislation, but could support allowing fuel taxes to rise with inflation, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said in a recent interview.

Without an increase in fuel taxes, which he said the Bush administration would consider a "non-starter," the Highway Trust Fund would have a 46% reduction in purchasing power from 1993 to 2009.

"The question is: What do we do to bridge that gap between where we are and where we ought to be?" Mineta said Nov. 20. Looking at options, he said, "without imposing additional gasoline taxes I suppose one of them would be indexing of the present taxes."

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