Countdown
America's Next Transportation Act
Paving the Way to $375 Billion
The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association
and
other transportation industry activists have but one goal: $375 billion.
by Kevin Voelte
The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association and the entire
transportation construction industry are poised to help Chairman Don Young
(R-AL-AK) and the rest of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee win the fight for a six-year, $375-billion reauthorization of
the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, the federal law that
funds the nation’s surface transportation system.
The $375-billion funding level is what the Federal Highway
Administration states is needed over the next six years to simply maintain
the existing status of our nation’s highways, bridges, and transit
systems. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has put forth a
$311-billion plan while the Bush Administration has called for a funding
level of $247 billion, a mere 13% increase in TEA-21 levels. Although both
the Senate and the Bush Administration’s plans contain funding
increases, the House T&I Committee’s plan sets us on the right road
to implement desperately needed infrastructure improvements. America’s
economy loses $67 billion each year due to traffic congestion. Consumers
waste 55.7-billion gallons of fuel and workers lose over a week and a half
of valuable time sitting in traffic each year. If the $375-billion
investment level is not met, the country’s roadways will continue to
deteriorate, the new capacity to meet current and anticipated demands will
not be built, and the drag on our economy will worsen.
The major sticking point in the House T&I Committee’s plan is
increasing and/or indexing of the federal highway user fee, which
currently charges $0.184 per gallon of gasoline and $0.244 per gallon of
diesel fuel as a source of revenue to fund the nation’s highways and
transit projects. The plan would retroactively index the user fee back to
1993 to account for inflation and would raise the user fee by $0.02 per
year for the life of the reauthorization. Due to the proposed user fee
increase, the plan is unfortunately being met with opposition by some
Members of Congress. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-4-CO) has led the
resistance, circulating an imprudent letter throughout the House of
Representatives soliciting Members to oppose any increase and indexing of
the federal highway user fee. However, according to a recent Zogby
International survey, over 64% of Americans support a $0.02 per year
increase in the user fee if the proceeds are dedicated exclusively to
highways and transit projects. NRMCA believes as President Ronald Reagan
did when he raised the federal highway user fee in 1982 that the cost of
the user fee increase will be small, but the benefit to our nation’s
transportation system and economy will be immense. An increase in the
federal highway user fee will not be a tax increase on consumers; it will
be an investment in building America that will save time, enhance
mobility, save fuel, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the economy
(every $1 billion in federal highway investment directly or indirectly
supports up to 47,500 jobs), and protect the safety of American motorists!
Reprinted from Better Roads Magazine
September 2003 |
