DOT chief to tour Nebraska with GOP senator

Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx is scheduled to tour a highway project in Nebraska with Republican Sen. Deb Fischer. 

Foxx and Fischer are scheduled on Wednesday to visit a diverging diamond highway project, which reroutes traffic on bridges to opposite sides of the normal direction of travel to improve the flow of traffic onto highways. 

Foxx and Fischer are also scheduled to hold a roundtable discussion with local transportation officials in Nebraska. 

{mosads}The bipartisan roadshow comes after Congress failed to pass a long-term transportation funding bill before leaving Washington for an August recess. 

Transportation advocates pushed lawmakers to approve a six-year infrastructure funding measure, but Congress could not agree on a way to pay for the measure. Lawmakers instead settled for a three-month transportation extension that is scheduled to expire in October. 

Foxx has chided lawmakers for passing temporary transportation bills in recent years as federal infrastructure funding has dried up. 

Transportation advocates have pushed for a gas tax increase for years to close an approximately $16 billion annual shortfall in infrastructure funding that has developed as cars have become more fuel-efficient.

The current tax of 18.4 cents per gallon brings in about $34 billion per year. The federal government typically spends approximately $50 billion in funding per year, which transportation advocates have said is barely enough to cover the repair needs of the current U.S. infrastructure system. 

The shortfall has resulted in Congress failing to pass a transportation funding bill that lasts longer than two years since 2005.