Senator Urges Fuel-Tax Hike
WASHINGTON — Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said Congress should raise federal fuel taxes in order to restore its purchasing power, and suggested there may be small signs of growing support among colleagues.
Carper — who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s subcommittee on transportation and infrastructure — called a fuel-tax hike as among “the tapestry of options” that will be required to solve the nation’s short-term and long-term infrastructure funding needs.
He spoke here May 13 during an Infrastructure Week event at American Trucking Associations’ Capitol Hill office. He said while fuel taxes have not been raised in more than 20 years, the price of asphalt and other materials has continued to rise.
Combined with more efficient vehicles, Carper said a phased-in increase over a period of years is needed. With attention on the pending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund growing, he said more senators are willing to consider a fuel-tax hike than in the past.
Carper’s comments followed a panel of trucking industry leaders that called an increase in federal fuel taxes the most efficient way to raise money to help solve the nation’s infrastructure crisis.
Along with ATA President Bill Graves, Philip Byrd Sr., ATA chairman and CEO of Bulldog Hiway Express, Bill Logue president of FedEx Freight and Pat Thomas, a vice president with UPS Inc. also agreed that increased tolling of existing interstates amounts to double taxation and should be opposed.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) opened the event with a discussion of several bills pending in Congress.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, also addressed the audience, saying that transportation funding needs to be a “nonpartisan issue and that the “nation has to make an investment” in transportation.
Related stories:
Key Senate committee unveils six-year highway bill.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx urges Congress to boost federal Highway Trust Fund.
More coverage of Infrastructure Week will be included in the May 19 print edition of Transport Topics.
