A solution for the Highway Trust Fund?

The start of a new congressional session means that lawmakers will again attempt to find a solution for the Highway Trust Fund.

During a House Highways and Transit subcommittee hearing on Jan. 22, lawmakers spoke out about the current shortfall.

Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., chairman of the subcommittee, used his opening statement to discuss inequities with the current Highway Trust Fund, which uses fuel taxes to pay for federal road and bridge projects. Rouzer said the fund hasn’t been fully solvent since 2008.

“We must also have a frank conversation about the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund – the main funding source for highway projects,” Rouzer said. “Since 2008, Congress has transferred approximately $275 billion to cover the shortfall of revenues as expenditures have grown.”

Although the problem is not a new one, the congressman said it is time for lawmakers to figure out a new funding mechanism, as electric vehicles are not contributing to the current system.

“Highway funding relies on a user-pay principle,” Rouzer said. “It’s pretty simple: You purchase fuel to fill up your vehicle to use the roads, and the fuel tax collected from that purchase is put into the Highway Trust Fund. However, electric vehicles, which are often heavier than their conventional counterparts because of the weight of their batteries, do not pay in the Highway Trust Fund.”

In previous sessions, a vehicle-miles-traveled tax and tolls have been presented as potential ways to correct the issue. However, a VMT tax has raised concerns over privacy, and the trucking industry has argued against efforts to create truck-only tolls.

Rouzer suggested that getting all vehicles to pay their fair share should be a priority.

“It is wholly unfair that an entire segment of users doesn’t contribute to the roads and bridges they use,” he said. “This won’t address the greater solvency issue, obviously, but we must rectify this so that all users are treated fairly and contribute to the systems on which they rely.”

Dennis Dellinger, president of Cargo Transporters, testified that funding should be generated in an equitable manner.

“The trucking industry is the leading payer into the Highway Trust Fund, contributing almost half of all revenues while representing less than 5% of road users,” Dellinger wrote in his submitted testimony. “While the trucking industry is proud to pay our fair share, Congressional attention and action is necessary to ensure a lasting, viable and equitable revenue source for continued infrastructure investments.”

Equity is often the largest concern from members of the trucking industry when lawmakers brainstorm new ways to generate highway funding.

As Congress worked toward passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said that professional drivers favored the current user-fee structure.

“These user fees are the most equitable and efficient means for supporting the nation’s highway needs,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in 2021.

OOIDA added that there were many unanswered questions regarding the implementation of a VMT tax.

The American Trucking Associations and OOIDA have especially opposed any efforts to create a truck-only VMT tax.

In 2021, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, suggested using a truck-only tax as a way to fund the nation’s infrastructure. Cornyn called corporate tax increases, as well as a general fuel tax increase, political nonstarters. Instead, he suggested a 25-cent-per-mile fee on most Class 7 and Class 8 trucks.

OOIDA and ATA promptly sent a joint letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance to voice their opposition to a “discriminatory” truck-only tax.

“As the leading payer into the Highway Trust Fund and the only mode of freight transportation with that responsibility, the trucking industry is proud to pay our fair share,” the OOIDA and ATA letter stated. “To claim that cars are ‘subsidizing’ trucks as a pretext to implementing a new discriminatory, truck-only tax is egregious and misleading.

“While trucks account for only 4% of vehicles on the road and 9% of all vehicle-miles-traveled nationally, we currently pay nearly half the entire (Highway Trust Fund) federal user-fee tab.” LL