Industry groups urge Trump to restore HTF

A broad industry coalition sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to find a long-term, user-based revenue source for the Highway Trust Fund and not to rely solely on private funding for the administration’s infrastructure investment plan.    A coalition of transportation and construction advocacy groups recently sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to find a long-term, user-based revenue source for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and not to rely solely on private funding for the administration’s infrastructure investment plan.
   In the letter, which was also sent to both chambers of Congress, the groups praised Trump’s stated commitment to improving transportation infrastructure and asked for his continued leadership to “pass a balanced infrastructure investment plan that will lift our nation’s economy and improve our transportation network.”
   The coalition noted that with much of the nation’s ports, roads and bridges relying on “stopgap” funding measures, significant new investment is needed in order to remain competitive in the global market.
   “We can no longer afford to underinvest in the infrastructure that Americans rely on in our daily lives,” the coalition wrote, adding that any “responsible” plan should look to improve all types of infrastructure across the board.
   A key component in this, according to the letter, is restoring solvency to the HTF, the primary funding mechanism for highways, bridges and infrastructure projects.
   Because the federal gas tax, HTF’s revenue source, has not been raised since 1993 when it was increased to 18.4 cents per gallon, 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.
   Restoring the solvency of the fund, according to the coalition, is a prerequisite for maintaining a competitive infrastructure system and “will require a commitment to a long-term, reliable, dedicated, user-based revenue source.”
   “Failure to resolve the issues facing the trust fund prior to the expiration of the current law in 2020 will require you to make a decision to either pass additional short-term stopgap measures or find a $110 billion off-set to pass a long-term bill that will at best maintain current funding levels that do not meet our transportation infrastructure needs,” the group wrote. “Absent long-term stability for the Highway Trust Fund, many projects critical to the efficient movement of people and goods have the real potential to be backlogged or never built. Further, mounting deferred maintenance could cause current infrastructure to fall into an even greater state of disrepair.”
   The coalition noted Trump’s stated plan to include high levels of private funding in his administration’s infrastructure investment proposal, saying that although private financing should play a role, it can never be expected to replace public funding and federal leadership.
   Members of the coalition include American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American Public Transportation Association, American Association of Port Authorities, American Council of Engineering Companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO.