Finding options for maintaining our highways

We've always felt that the taxing system used to pay for road repair was one of the fairest ones possible.

Before you can drive on highways, you have to fill your fuel tank, paying a portion to the government to keep those highways in repair.

All was well and good until a couple of factors combined to put a crimp on the system -- higher gas prices, and more efficient cars.

When the "Great Recession" hit, business slowed and so did the sale of fuel used to transport goods which weren't being sold and workers who weren't going to work. At the same time, cars began getting better mileage, requiring drivers to buy less fuel and pay fewer tax dollars in the process. As more and more of us switch to hybrid cars -- with gasoline mileage unheard of only a few years ago -- or even electric vehicles, the tax stream can only be reduced farther.

Meanwhile, Nebraska's roads are falling more and more into disrepair. According to Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine, a recent report showed the portion of Nebraska's roads listed as in very good or good condition dropped from 81 percent to 74 percent in the last two years.

She's proposing that a half-cent of existing state sales tax collections be diverted to highway construction over the next 20 years. The diversion would begin in 2013, when lawmakers hope the state revenue to be back to normal, and is expected to raise about $125 million a year.

The Department of Roads says Nebraska needs $9.2 billion over the next 20 years to keep state highways in good shape -- which could grow to $13.2 billion with inflation.

She also wants to allow the state to issue up to half a billion in highway bonds for high-priority, high dollar projects, doing so in 2018 and paying them off within 20 years.

It would also apply $15 million a year toward Nebraska's long-promised expressway system to connect smaller cities to Interstate 80 -- many would like to see Highway 83 become just such a link.

Another bill, by Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, would raise the state's motor fuel tax from 7.5 cents per gallon to 12.5 cents over the next two years -- which she says would raise between $77 million and $78 million a year.

We don't like the idea of the state going into debt, even for something as important as highway construction. Nor do we like raising taxes of any kind, even those as "fair" and relatively unnoticed as fuel taxes.

But it's clear we have to find money somewhere to keep up highways, the most important infrastructure the state owns, especially for those of us in outstate Nebraska.

It's clear some new source will have to be found as we begin to shift away from petroleum as a transportation fuel.

For now, it looks like the bills by Campbell and Fischer are the best options available.