ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of the gas tax and the Highway Trust Fund. It also focuses on the emergence of partisanship in the passage of Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) in 1991, the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century in 1998, and the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficiency Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users in 2005. The chapter discusses the significant changes made to federal transportation policy by the 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act and the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway and Highway Revenue Acts vastly increased the power and stakes of the transportation policy monopoly by authorizing a major new federal investment in highways. The primary focus of issue expansion in federal transportation policy as reflected in ISTEA was a greater emphasis on planning, design, and the environment.
