Highway Trust Fund

To be clear, 1993 was a long time ago, and over that time many, many things have changed, but, as we all know the respective per-gallon tabs of 23.4 cents for diesel and 18.4 cents for gasoline is something that has not changed.

Now, there is talk about President Biden “considering a gas tax holiday to ease high fuel prices,” through the end of September, according to a New York Times report published this week. Were this to come to fruition, it would require Congressional approval. Given the current political climate, it could well be viewed as a longshot, to be fair.

Now is the time for supply chain managers and related voices to make themselves heard. Both Democrats and Republicans seek to create jobs through construction programs and improve America's competitive advantage.

While the National Football League’s season is ostensibly on the brink of shuttering, due to the issues related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the game of political football inside the nation’s capital remains alive and well. That was made more than clear in late September, at the end of the fiscal year, when the White House signed a one-year continuing resolution for the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the five-year federal surface transportation authorization, which was...

Entitled America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019, Senate EPW officials said this five-year, $287 billion bill includes $259 million for formula programs to maintain and repair United States roads and bridges. What’s more, they noted that the $287 billion tally represents a 27% increase over FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act levels.

For optimistic folks still holding on to the hope of a long-term federal transportation authorization coming to fruition before the next Presidential election, it is likely time to label those hopes as wishful thinking. That’s the word from James H. Burnley, a partner at Washington D.C.-based law firm Vebnable LLP and former Secretary of Transportation under the late President Ronald Reagan.

Even though the federal government shutdown is approaching its third week that does not deter from the many facets of surface transportation infrastructure that will be addressed in 2019.

Time can be defined in many different ways. A year can be viewed as a long time for certain things, as can five years or an even decade. But you know what’s a really long time? 25 years i.e. a quarter century. Why is 25 years significant? Let me tie it to transportation infrastructure, specifically the Highway Trust Fund and its key funding mechanism, the federal gasoline tax, which has not been increased in, wait for it….25 years? As a...

A report recently issued by the Problem Solvers Caucus platform focuses on bipartisan policy solutions with an eye on augmenting United States’ infrastructure. Entitled, “Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure,” the report comes at a time when the current status of U.S. infrastructure planning, from both an operational and financial perspective, is somewhat stuck in neutral.

In a world filled with uncertainties, there are at least two certainties in the world of freight transportation, supply chain management, and logistics as it relates to federal policy: the federal gasoline tax will never see an increase and national transportation infrastructure that is badly needed will never receive the requisite amounts needed.

In a research brief issued on Nov. 10, EIA said that at the end of July the HTF was at its lowest level in decades at $6.1 billion. And while a Congressionally approved transfer of more than $8 billion brought the HTF balance to $12 billion at the end of the fiscal year on September 30, it still represented the second-lowest fiscal year-end level since 1984, more than 30 years ago.

Congress should put aside its philosophical differences and make a long-deferred investment in transportation infrastructure through a “dime or two” per-gallon increase in the federal fuel tax, which should be made more politically palatable by more accurately referring to it as a “user fee” rather than a tax.

The Highway Trust Fund is irretrievably broken and should be eliminated in favor of a new system of revenue streams or by dedicating a portion of the federal income tax to pay for transportation. That’s the conclusion of a new multi-year report by the Eno Foundation, an influential Washington transportation think tank. The report, released in early December, was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The biggest issue for transport in 2015 is funding for Interstate highways. That current funding will expire in May after a stop-gap nine-month continuing resolution expires. Whether the new Congress has the gumption to tackle the sticky problem of how to pay for much-needed highway and bridge reconstruction is an open question, however.

The House of Representatives voted by a 367-55 margin to approve H.R. 5021, the Highway Transportation and Funding Act of 2014, which will keep federal transportation funding intact through May 2015.