Bud Shuster, a former longtime Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who was crowned the “king of asphalt” because he funneled billions of dollars in gasoline tax revenue to his Appalachian district for highway construction, died on Wednesday at his farm in Everett, Pa. He was 91.
His death, from complications of a hip fracture two weeks ago, was confirmed by Rebekah Sungala, a close family friend.
During his 28 years in Congress, including three terms as chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Mr. Shuster managed to divert a disproportionately large share of federal highway trust funds into pedestrian crossings, access roads, interchanges, buses, road widening and the Bud Shuster Highway, which links State College, Altoona and the Pennsylvania Turnpike in southern Pennsylvania.
By 1991, he had perfected the earmarking of federal funds to his district so successfully that when Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, was asked which state had reaped the biggest slice of the highway trust-fund pie, he replied, “The state of Altoona.”
Mr. Shuster’s two signature pieces of legislation were the 1998 surface transportation bill, which reserved revenue from gasoline taxes for road and transit projects, and a 2000 bill guaranteeing that money from a tax on airline tickets would be dedicated to aviation.
In 2000, the House Ethics Committee reproved Mr. Shuster for “serious official misconduct,” its mildest form of punishment, because he had allowed his former chief of staff, Ann M. Eppard, to play a major role in his congressional office for 18 months after she resigned to become a transportation industry lobbyist, and because he had accepted improper gifts from her.
He said he had “complied with the law” and with his “understanding of what was right,” but he accepted the negotiated punishment to “stop the hemorrhaging of legal fees.”
In 2001, one day after he was sworn in for his 15th term, Mr. Shuster stunned fellow members of the House by announcing his resignation. He blamed his wife’s failing health and party rules that limited committee chairmen to three two-year terms.
“After being the quarterback of a Super Bowl championship team,” he told The Associated Press at the time, “I have no desire to play backup.”
He was succeeded by his son Bill, who won a special election and served in the House until 2019.
Bud Shuster ran unopposed for re-election nine times. His last major challenge was in 1984, when he easily defeated the actress Nancy Kulp, the Democratic nominee, who had played Jane Hathaway, a banker’s loyal secretary, on the 1960s-era sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Representative Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican who now heads the Transportation Committee, said of Mr. Shuster in a statement issued after his death, “Our nation’s highways, aviation system, ports and waterways, rail network, water systems and more all benefited from his ability to bring together members of Congress from across the political spectrum in support of infrastructure.”
Elmer Greinert Shuster was born on Jan. 23, 1932, in Glassport, Pa., a former railroad and mining hub about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh. His father, Prather, was a bricklayer. His mother, Grace, was a homemaker.
Mr. Shuster once said he had been inspired to pursue a political career when, at age 11, he saw his neighbors gathered around a local congressman appealing for his help.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and served in the Army as an infantry lieutenant from 1954 to 1956. He earned a master’s in business administration from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in 1960 and a doctorate in business and economics from American University in Washington.
Mr. Shuster married Patricia Rommel after they met in high school; she died in 2016. He is survived by his second wife, Darlene Johnston; his five children, William and Robert Shuster, Gia Dixon, Peg Statler and Debbie Shuster King; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
He had been a vice president of the computer division of RCA in Washington and had founded his own software company when, without prior experience in electoral politics, he ran for the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania in 1972 in a Republican primary. He defeated the state party organization’s candidate, a state senator.
He landed a seat on the Public Works Committee and began unapologetically funneling federal funds into his district to encourage construction of industrial parks and other economic development. He became Transportation Committee chairman in 1995.
Mr. Shuster’s $218 billion, six-year highway measure in 1998 included $9 billion in special projects nationwide, with $110 million worth designated for his district.
He once said, “I hope they put on my tombstone 40 years from now: ‘He helped build America.’”
