Face infrastructure costs.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's the rare national crisis that doesn't open windows of opportunity.

So it is with last month's collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis and the long-festering problem of this nation's deteriorating transportation infrastructure.

On Monday the U.S. Senate approved $1 billion to speed the repair and replacement of America's aging network of bridges. The Democratic plan would increase federal funding next year for bridge repair and replacement by 20 percent.

Sounds impressive. But the increased funding would provide just a small down payment on an estimated $65 billion nationwide backlog of bridge repairs. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates it will cost $9.4 billion a year over the next two decades to fix the 70,000 U.S. bridges that have been rated as structurally deficient.

The new bridge funding would come from the highway trust fund, and that presents a problem: The fund's reserves have dwindled in recent years, as federal gasoline tax revenues have fallen well below estimates. Federal officials say there's insufficient enough money remaining to fund highway programs across the nation at levels prescribed by the 2005 national highway bill.

Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has proposed an alternative solution that merits serious consideration. He wants to increase the federal gasoline tax by 5 cents a gallon, a move that would produce more than $6 billion a year for a new bridge trust fund.

The Bush administration opposes Oberstar's proposal, arguing that it's a knee-jerk reaction to the Minneapolis collapse.

Perhaps so. But Congress and the administration have too long neglected the nation's bridges. If it takes a national tragedy to get the federal government's attention, then so be it.

An increase in the federal gas tax is long overdue - Congress last raised it from 18.3 cents to 18.4 cents per gallon in 1997.

As Oregon and other states across the country increase the amount of money they're spending on badly needed transportation improvements, it's time for the federal government to step up as well.