American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear told a Senate panel that the federal government needs to invest more in highway infrastructure if the trucking industry is to keep up with growth in demand for freight transportation services.
“The Highway Trust Fund is projected to run short of the revenue necessary to maintain current spending levels by 2021, creating a huge funding gap that could force states to cancel or delay critical projects. The U.S. spends less than half of what is necessary to address these needs,” Spear said. “As the investment gap continues to grow, so too will the number of deficient bridges, roads, bottlenecks and, most critically, fatalities attributable to inadequate roadways.
His remarks came as Congress was finishing work on a major tax-cut bill that did not provide any new revenue for transportation investments, as many stakeholder groups had urged.
Spear said the federal government needs to invest more in highway infrastructure if the trucking industry is to keep up with growth in demand for its freight-hauling services.
Right now, Spear said, the nation "spends less than half of what is necessary to address these needs. As the investment gap continues to grow, so too will the number of deficient bridges, roads, bottlenecks and, most critically, fatalities attributable to inadequate roadways."
He noted that "the Highway Trust Fund is projected to run short of the revenue necessary to maintain current spending levels by 2021, creating a huge funding gap that could force states to cancel or delay critical projects."
The ATA, he said, proposes that Congress create a "Build America Fund" that would be "supported with a new, indexed, 20-cent-per gallon fee built into the price of transportation fuels collected at the terminal rack, which will generate nearly $340 billion over the first 10 years."
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