Exec says better roads would help ease port congestion

Exec says better roads would help ease port congestion Congress should address highway funding shortfalls as a way to relieve port congestion, said Gerald Shaheen, chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “because much of the congestion that cripples our ports occurs on highways and roads leading to and from them.”
   Shaheen, group president of Caterpillar Inc., made his comments in a keynote address to the 95th annual meeting of the American Association of Port Authorities in New Orleans.
   “National Highway System connectors to intermodal freight facilities are in worse condition and receive less funding than other NHS routes,” he said. “While Congress could do better by targeting investment in ‘last mile’ road segments, the best possible solution is increasing the size of the entire pie.”
   Shaheen said last year’s highway reauthorization bill does little to address the shortfall in highway funding, and “by 2015, current revenue streams from all levels of government will fall more than $1 trillion short of what’s needed to modernize our infrastructure to where it improves the nation’s economic productivity.”
   He added that a study released by the Chamber last year shows that without changes in the federal funding structure the highway trust fund will run out of money as early as 2009.
   While that chamber has not endorsed any of the recommendations in the study, he said it put forth several ideas for increased funding that are “conversation starters” including:
   * Indexing the federal gas tax to inflation. Since last being increased in 1993, gas tax revenues have lost one-third of their purchasing power, in part because of rising material costs.
   * Closing exemptions to the Highway Trust Fund so revenues collected for surface transportation are spent of transportation and not deficit reduction or other programs.
   * Stimulating greater use of innovative finance tools such as loan guarantees, private activity bonds, tax credit financing, investment tax credits, tolling and fees based on how many miles a vehicle travels.
   Shaheen said the study is being used by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, which is due to submit a report to Congress next year.