Trucking calls for bold, bipartisan infrastructure package

American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear issued the following statement after House Democrats released their outline for infrastructure legislation yesterday:

“We commend Speaker Pelosi and House Leaders for their commitment to revitalizing American infrastructure. Each additional day that we short our nation’s roads and bridges of needed funds, more lives are at put at risk, more hours of the day are lost sitting in traffic and more damage is done to the environment.
“We look forward to working with Congress and the Administration on a robust infrastructure package that restores our roads and bridges with a cost-effective, fiscally conservative and realistic funding solution in the near-term.”
ATA has proposed the Build America Fund, which would be supported with a federal fuel-usage fee built into the price of transportation fuels—diesel and gasoline—collected at the wholesale terminal rack, phased in at a nickel per year over four years. The fee would be indexed to both inflation and improvements in fuel efficiency, with a five percent annual cap. ATA estimates the Build America Fund would generate $340 billion in new revenue over the first ten years, without adding a dime to the federal deficit or requiring any new administrative bureaucracy.