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The Highway Trust Fund will run a deficit of $7 billion this year, compared with a surplus of $11 billion in 2010, the office said in a report today. The highway and mass transit portions of the fund will probably be unable to meet their obligations in 2012 and 2013, the report said. The fund will continue to run a deficit through 2020, it said.

The fund’s condition underscores the challenge facing President Barack Obama and Congress in how to pay for infrastructure building, after Obama committed to spending on roads, bridges and transit yesterday in his annual State of the Union speech.

Obama’s upcoming budget won’t include an increase in the gasoline sales tax paid into the trust fund, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters in Washington today after speaking to the Aero Club of Washington. LaHood said the administration has always opposed gas-tax increases and “that still stands.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Obama’s deficit reduction commission have recommended a 15-cent-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax, which has been 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, to pay for highway and transit projects.

Halting Spending

U.S. House Republicans voted Jan. 4 to give the Appropriations Committee the right to halt spending for highway repairs and construction to prevent the fund from spending more than it receives in revenue. The fund has received transfers of $27 billion in the past two years to keep it solvent, the CBO’s report said.

Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has said an increase in the gas tax could not pass the House. He has said he would consider indexing the fund so that the tax could rise and fall with inflation.

The CBO said in its report that fuel tax revenue into the trust fund will decline by 1 percent this year due to higher use of ethanol-blend fuels, which are taxed at lower effective rates than pure gasoline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Carol Wolf in Washington at cwolf@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net