This Editorial appears in the April 29 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today. Why is this so hard? Raising federal fuel taxes is the quickest, easiest and most efficient solution available to the U.S. government to pay for the nation’s critical infrastructure needs.
We’ve been saying it for years, even as Congress and the White House have turned deaf ears. We’re still saying it — and we’re not alone.
A number of states have, or are in the process of, raising their fuel taxes.
And last week, a special panel established to examine how to raise the necessary cash by the new chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee heard that message from every witness that testified, including representatives from trucking, expedited freight, railroads and even labor.
The witness list at the first-ever hearing of the Panel on 21st Century Freight Transportation was varied and impressive. And they all said virtually the same thing: raise federal fuel taxes.
Said Derek Leathers, president and chief operating officer of Werner Enterprises Inc.: “It is time for Congress to make the difficult — but vital — decision to raise or index the fuel tax, or do both, to ensure stable funding is available and to address the costly inefficiencies facing our highway network.”
Ed Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, had a similar message: “The Highway Trust Fund’s broken and it’s facing insolvency. . . . Unless we increase revenues flowing into the collapsing fund, yes, by raising the gas tax . . . our highways, bridges and public transit systems will fail us and our economy will crater.”
Similar sentiments came from Fred Smith, chairman and CEO of FedEx Corp., and railroader Charles Moorman, CEO of Norfolk Southern Corp.
About the only folks not on the bandwagon were a number of the 11 congressmen on the panel.
Indeed, the only panelist to speak in favor of fuel taxes was Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), who said, “The elephant in the room . . . is: how do we pay for all of this? We have unanimity there, yet in Congress, we seem to have a real problem even broaching the subject.”
Federal fuel taxes haven’t been raised since 1993, even as fuel prices have skyrocketed and inflation has devalued our currency. Today, the same 24.4 cents goes in the Highway Trust Fund for every gallon of diesel sold in the nation as well as 18.4 cents of every gallon of gasoline.
Now is the time for Congress to finally gather its courage and solve our infrastructure needs by raising federal fuel taxes.
