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Foxx, infrastructure chair Bill Shuster to hold Twitter ‘Town Hall’ session on fixing roads

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., will hold a joint Twitter "Town Hall" session Wednesday to discuss U.S. infrastructure and how to fund improvements.

Topics to be covered during the session include: surface transportation reauthorization legislation; how to strengthen the nation's highways, bridges and transit infrastructure; how to boost funding and the future of the U.S. transportation system.

The Twitter event (#StuckInTraffic) will take place after Foxx testifies before Shuster's committee on the need for long-term transportation legislation, The Washington Post and The Hill reported.

The online event occurs as lawmakers are trying to come up with a funding source for a new piece of legislation on infrastructure this year, The Hill reported.

The current transportation funding bill, which includes only $11 billion worth of projects, is scheduled to expire on May 31.

Lawmakers are searching for a way to pay for a long-term transportation funding extension for years, turning in recent times to other areas of the federal budget to pay for temporary patches.

There is little agreement on how to add to the revenue collected by 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax, which has been used to finance the Highway Trust Fund since the 1950s.

Trucking groups have largely favored raising the federal gas tax but President Barack Obama has said he opposes a tax increase.

The gas tax, which predates the highway system by about 20 years, hasn't increased since 1993. It has struggled since to keep pace with infrastructure expenses as vehicles become more fuel efficient.

The tax at the pump brings in about $34 billion per year, compared with about $50 billion per year spent by the federal government on road and transit projects.

Foxx said last week in an interview with PBS's “Charlie Rose” show that he did not think the gas tax was a viable solution to the nation's infrastructure funding problems, even if it were increased later this year.

"Using the fuel tax ... was able to help us build the infrastructure to have the highway system we have today," he said. "But today, we have two problems. One is we have a legacy system that has to be maintained. And we also have fast-growing areas of the country that need new capacity. So we have both problems that we didn't have back in 1956."

Instead, he said a deal to boost U.S. infrastructure funding will likely have to find an alternative source of revenue, potentially as part of a broader tax reform package.

The Obama administration has suggested using revenue from taxing overseas corporate profits to spend $478 billion over the next six years on fixing the country's crumbling infrastructure.

House leaders have expressed interest in long-term infrastructure funding this year, but Republican leaders have yet to offer definitive funding amount yet, according to The Hill.

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