Trump on Infrastructure Draws More Questions than Applause from Trucking
Heavy truck traffic on a California highway. Photo: U.S. Department of Transportation
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Reaction by highway stakeholder groups to President Trump’s State of the Union remarks on investing in infrastructure seem to be informed as much by earlier information on his spending proposal as by anything he said in his Jan. 30 address to Congress.
In his SOTU speech, the president called for Congress to pass a bipartisan bill that “generates” at least $1.5 trillion to invest in infrastructure improvements— but he made no mention of how to pay for that princely sum.
Click here for our report on Trump speech
But based on what the Trump Administration has previously stated— as well as a recently leaked draft document— the president’s approach to financing infrastructure improvements remains fixed on priming the pump with $200 billion in cash and tax credits to presumably stoke spending on infrastructure projects by state and even local governments as well as private investors.
It should be noted that the leaked draft document contained one specific point that did not go over at all with several stakeholder groups: That states be allowed “flexibility to toll on interstates and reinvest toll revenues in infrastructure” and to “reconcile the grandfathered restrictions on use of highway toll revenues with current law.”
Tolls a No Go for Many
Albeit to different degrees, the American Trucking Associations, the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates and NATSO, which represents truck-stop operators, all declared their opposition to reversing the current federal ban on tolling existing interstates and to expanding tolling in general.
At least one lobbying group, though, said it is “encouraged by the President’s call to cut burdensome regulations and laws that prevent states from accessing all available funding options to meet their local needs.” Patrick Jones, Executive Director and CEO of …Read the rest of this story
