AASHTO urges Congress to fix ‘broken’ Highway Trust Fund

The primary federal funding mechanism for transportation infrastructure projects will run out of money once the FAST Act expires in 2020, according to Bud Wright, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.    The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is urging Congress to fix the “broken” Highway Trust Fund (HTF) before its funding expires in 2020.
   The trust fund is “not going to be able to sustain the current program” of highway and transit spending once the five-year Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act ends, according to AASHTO Executive Director Bud Wright.
   The primary revenue source for the HTF is the federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993, when it was increased to 18.4 cents per gallon. As a result, the fund only brings in about $34 billion annually, compared with the $50 billion the government spends each year on transportation projects.
   The roughly $16 billion shortfall has led Congress to bail out the HTF with more than $40 billion from the Treasury over the past seven years – money that necessarily comes from borrowing or diversion from other programs.
   Establishing a “long-term, sustainable source of funding for transportation” is a top policy priority for AASHTO and its members, Wright said in an interview with Transportation TV. “We know we have a Highway Trust Fund that’s broken.”
   As part of its annual “Washington Briefing” conference, which begins today, AASHTO officials plan to meet with federal lawmakers, including House and Senate transportation committee leaders, to discuss state transportation infrastructure funding needs.
   The event comes just a few weeks after AASHTO and several other industry groups wrote a letter to new President Donald Trump urging him to find a long-term, user-based revenue source for the HTF and not to rely solely on private funding for the administration’s infrastructure investment plan. That letter, which was cosigned by the American Public Transportation Association, American Association of Port Authorities, American Council of Engineering Companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO, among others, was also sent to both chambers of Congress.
   Leading up to the November election, Trump said his administration would put forth a strong infrastructure investment proposal that would rely on high levels of private financing, but few details of the actual plan have emerged as of yet. 
   AASHTO and the other signatories to the letter said that although they support the inclusion of private investment in infrastructure, it can never be expected to replace public funding and federal leadership.
   This is “one of those rare times when infrastructure is a principal topic in Washington, D.C.,” Wright told TTV. “From the presidential campaign to now – some of the early declarations from the Trump administration – infrastructure seems as though is going to be at the forefront of his policy agenda.”