PEORIA, Ill. — A recent 60 Minutes profile on America’s crumbling transportation infrastructure has reignited the debate on how to best finance repairs to the nation’s railways, roads and bridges. While some favor penalizing large corporations that have funneled profits into foreign banks to avoid U.S. taxes and using the spoils to finance billions in infrastructure repairs, others are calling for raising – or even lowering, in one instance – the nation’s fuel tax to subsidize repairs.

"As a rule in this country, widespread attention is devoted to transportation only when a catastrophe occurs. It therefore is revealing how significant our transportation problems are when the topic becomes the lead story on 60 Minutes," Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition (STC), said one day after the Nov. 23 transportation infrastructure segment was featured on the popular CBS news program.

"The segment called attention to two issues – road and highway funding and the condition of bridges – that are the focus of a couple of ongoing initiatives of the (STC)."

The major source of revenue for transportation infrastructure repairs, the federal Highway Trust Fund, derives its funding from the federal gasoline tax of 18 cents per gallon. The fund will be insolvent by spring unless something is done, according to former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood of Peoria, who told 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft that the Highway Trust Fund helped the U.S. create the best interstate system in the world, but now it is falling apart due to congressional inaction.

"It’s falling apart because we haven’t made the investments. We haven’t got the money. The last time we raised the gas tax, which is how we built the interstate system, was 1993," LaHood said. "Politicians in Washington don’t have the political courage to say, ‘This is what we have to do.’ That’s what it takes.

"They don’t want to spend the money. They don’t want to raise the taxes. They don’t really have a vision of America the way that other Congresses have had a vision of America."

Current U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx echoed LaHood’s comments in a statement issued Nov. 24 on the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s official Fast Lane blog, saying he was glad to see CBS address America’s ongoing transportation infrastructure repair issues.

"That’s why last night’s 60 Minutes segment was so powerful: It captured on film the cost of Congressional inaction, what happens when we let our roads, bridges and train tracks crumble," stated Foxx, in part. "I’ve been to 41 states, sounding the alarm that our infrastructure is crumbling and that we need Congress to step up and help us rebuild it. I’ve also put forward a plan – the GROW AMERICA Act – that would give Congress a roadmap to do exactly that and help us maintain our transportation system for generations to come."

The GROW AMERICA Act is a four-year, $302 billion proposal to boost government spending on road and rail repairs by around 22 percent per year, based largely on an "unspecified" onetime, $150 billion business tax based on corporate tax reform. The U.S. DOT has proposed that the one-time business tax be imposed on large corporations that store profits in offshore banks.

A large percentage of the 70,000 U.S. bridges rated as structurally deficient are located in states within the corn and soybean belt, according to Steenhoek, whose STC, along with Indiana University, completed a research project that analyzed the effect of various adjustments to the federal gas tax. The project explored a concept that would provide sustainable revenue for repairs while offering a more realistic prospect of gaining support from policymakers.

The STC/IU study found that imposing a one-cent reduction in gasoline and diesel taxes, plus annual indexing to inflation, would eventually result in a steady stream of revenue to fuel the federal Highway Trust Fund.

"I think it’s interesting that annual revenue under the proposal would match the status quo of no adjustment and no indexing in a couple years," said Steenhoek. "A couple years after that, the cumulative loss of the one cent reduction would be fully recovered. At that point, fuel tax revenues would be in positive territory and increasing with each succeeding year. As a result, the need for policymakers to routinely debate and consider adjusting the fuel tax will be significantly reduced because of the index."

The nation’s aged transportation infrastructure affects the movement of ag commodities and other freight, as well as people.

"During (the 60 Minutes segment), Amtrak president Joe Boardman pointed to a railroad bridge built in 1910 from a design developed in the 1840s. It’s a bridge that regularly delays rail travel up and down the Eastern Seaboard," Foxx said. "But the bridge is all set to be rebuilt – the design is done, and the project is shovel-ready – as soon as Congress decides to fund it.

"As Boardman said, ‘If Congress wants to do something now, build this bridge.’ I couldn’t agree more."