Editorial: Pennies From Heaven

It can be a frustrating endeavor to monitor the events on Capitol Hill. Our elected leaders are quite adept at saying the correct things, and we believe they aim to make the right decisions.

But it is difficult to accept how much time is wasted talking about the desperate need for infrastructure funding, knowing just how entrenched their views are.

Invited to speak at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, Bill Graves, president of American Trucking Associations, tried yet again to make the case for raising federal fuel taxes — and warning about the price of inaction.

“Roads and bridges aren’t free, and they’re certainly not cheap, yet Congress has been operating under the assumption that pennies might fall from heaven,” Graves said.

As has been the case for so many years now, trucking continues to plead with Congress to make the industry pay more at the diesel pump to maintain and enhance the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges.

Of course, the response from congressional leaders remains the same.

“We are not going to raise the gas tax,” said Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the Ways and Means panel.

That, once again, was the same message a day later from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), head of the Finance Committee.

“I don’t think a massive increase in the gas tax could be enacted into law,” Hatch said, while stressing his commitment to funding a long-term transportation plan this year.

While the infrastructure debate yielded more of the same, it was anything but business-as-usual on the issue of trade.

After nearly being derailed earlier in the week, an odd grouping of House Republicans came to the rescue of free-trade legislation sought by President Obama.

Passed by a 218-210 vote, the measure intends to speed the ability of the United States to reach free trade deals, starting with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with 12 Asian nations.

The trade agreements sought by Obama have strong backing among the business and trucking community — an alliance we have not seen all that often since he took office.

That takes us back to another sentiment Graves shared at the Ways and Means hearing: that trucking was ready to get behind “any policy you adopt that supports a multiple-year program and can be relied upon in the future.”

While we remain months — probably longer — away from any serious long-term policy on infrastructure funding being brought forth, maybe some hope on that critical issue can be gleaned from the bizarre way the trade measure played out on the House floor.