Congress should pass legislation to prohibit states from imposing business taxes on for-hire interstate carriers unless the carriers have real property in the state or received operating authority from it, American Trucking Associations told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed legislation that as of 2014 repeals the state’s 56-year-old property tax on trucks, tractors and trailers.

Arkansas truckers will try again next year to persuade the legislature there to pass a bill to raise the state’s 22.8-cent diesel tax by 5 cents to pay for improved roads and bridges.

Standing amid a fleet of trucks powered by liquefied natural gas, President Obama last week said he would propose tax credits for carriers who buy trucks powered by the fuel.

Mirroring the devastation the recession wreaked on the trucking industry, revenue from taxes truckers pay to support the nation’s highway system plummeted during the global crisis and has yet to fully recover.

State governments are losing out on over $10 billion in transportation revenue each year, due to states’ reluctance to raise fuel taxes, according to a study released Wednesday.

The North Carolina State Senate has killed a proposal to cap the state’s 35-cent tax on gasoline and diesel, which is about to rise sharply, by voting to end its session.

Will the old saw, “third time’s the charm,” turn out to be true for the truck safety tax-credit bill? That’s what carriers of all sizes are hoping for — although the larger fleets may be hoping a tad harder than their smaller colleagues.

Faced with the expiration in September of federal transportation taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, highway advocates say they are increasingly worried that the anti-tax, anti-government rancor that characterized the debt ceiling battle could endanger the nation’s transportation system.

Just when it seemed that the worst of the mayhem caused by Washington’s bizarre handling of the debt-limit crisis appears to have passed — as Congress broke for its summer recess — enter the latest peculiar chapter.