ARTBA’s Digital Push Gets Public Calling for Highway Bill
A digital campaign launched by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association is encouraging the public to urge congressional lawmakers to pass a multi-year surface transportation bill.
Since setting up the campaign last week, ARTBA has been promoting the Twitter hashtag #fixthetrustfund, and it has set up an online presence that allows people to connect with elected representatives on their computers and smartphones.
The group announced that, so far, its members and others involved have sent more than 1,000 e-mails, tweets and other social media messages to members of Congress using their online tools.
Last month, ARTBA proposed hiking the federal diesel and gasoline tax 15 cents a gallon and offset the cost for low- and middle-income people with tax rebates. There would be no rebates, though, for truckers buying diesel at 39.4 cents a gallon compared with the current tax of 24.4 cents a gallon. The gasoline tax is 18.4 cents a gallon.
The Highway Trust Fund collects revenues from the federal fuel taxes to help states finance transportation projects. User fees no longer are sufficient to cover the fund’s obligations. Since 2008, Congress has kept the fund operable by transferring nearly $55 billion from the general fund.
“Over the last seven months, we have seen little progress on how Congress is going to resolve this $15 billion-plus-a-year problem,” ARTBA President Pete Ruane said last month.
Without a boost to the Highway Trust Fund, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said state officials would be forced to delay or cancel big-ticket infrastructure projects.
Join ARTBA's Highway Trust Fund Campaign!—http://t.co/NrQrzJBzrP—#fixthetrustfund — ARTBA (@ARTBA) April 16, 2015
