Congressional Capacity

This Editorial appears in the April 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

As expected, 2016 has been a slow year on Capitol Hill, especially when it comes to transportation.

During any presidential election year, it’s common for things to slow to a crawl. In looking deeper at transportation, the passage of the FAST Act late last year was a signal trucking would not garner significant attention in 2016.

Though everyone knows the five-year law signed by President Obama in December was not the true long-term solution so many were hoping for, it did provide some short-term clarity on funding, rather than the “kicking of the can” a couple of months at a time that had become so commonplace.

So, facing these realities, it was refreshing to see Rep. Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, call a hearing last week focused on the commercial motor carrier industry (see story, p. 3).

More specifically, it was encouraging to hear him bring up the idea of truck-only lanes that would help boost freight-hauling capacity.

“We are going to see the doubling in the next 20 years or so of freight traffic, and then doubling again. So this is something — it’s a capacity issue that we have to face,” Shuster said April 13.

He said this idea would not only improve traffic flows and deliveries but also boost overall highway safety.

There are few people who would disagree with this idea on paper, but uncovering the financing and support to make this a reality would be a much harder task. The inability to get any traction on raising federal fuel taxes is all the reminder someone should need regarding how difficult it can be to get anything through Congress.

Still, Dave Osiecki, American Trucking Associations’ chief of national advocacy, remained positive in his comments at the hearing.

“We do have a capacity problem. We don’t have enough funding for our system. I think we all know that. We need to figure out as a country, as an industry and as a Congress, a better way to fund our infrastructure — highway infrastructure — going forward,” Osiecki said.

The hearing touched upon a number of issues and included discussions of topics that some in the trucking industry would not agree with.

But that, too, is an important part of hearings such as this one. The more that advocates of different sides of an issue can get together in front of Congress to share their views, the more likely compromise and consensus can be reached.