Truckers Seek Higher Fuel Tax

Shannon Newton

Everybody wants better roads and safe bridges, but who wants to pay for them?

Well, truckers do, apparently.

On Jan. 26, a coalition of AAA, the American Trucking Associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter urging members of the 114th Congress to raise the federal fuel tax rate. Currently, and since 1993, the rate has been 18.4 cents a gallon for gas and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel.

Two senators, Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., proposed legislation last summer to raise the rates by 6 cents in each of the next two years before tying the rate to inflation. Corker said the Highway Trust Fund, which pools the revenue and then allots it to states for infrastructure needs, faces a $100 billion shortfall in the next decade.

Neither President Barack Obama nor congressional leadership seems inclined to raise the fuel tax. Obama and Congress mostly talk about tax reform as a way to pay for infrastructure fixes.

“There has been no serious discussion to raise funding since 1993,” said Shannon Newton, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association. “We can’t do a highway program without funding. The fuel tax increase is the most cost-efficient way to do that.

“The industry would just prefer to pay more. The problem is political will. It is a hard sale in the anti-tax environment. The industry would like to pay more to deliver freight more efficiently.”

I don’t particularly like taxes. I also don’t particularly like driving over potholes and rickety bridges.

Trucking company officials have frequently told me during interviews during the past year that they are in favor of a hike. The problems with the current setup, said proponents of the tax increase, are two-fold.

One, the current tax rate does not generate nearly enough money to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent. While the tax rate has stayed constant, its purchasing power has dwindled by about 40 percent. People are also driving fewer miles in more fuel-efficient cars, reducing revenue generated by a fuel tax even further.

Congress has repeatedly passed stop-gap measures in the past few years to transfer general funds into the HTF. The latest measure expires at the end of May, and while the fund scrimps by, major repair projects are put on hold.

That leads to the second problem, which is, of course, that American roads and bridges are, to be polite, in shoddy shape. The letter-writing coalition said the studies have shown that 32 percent of major roads are in poor or mediocre condition that cost Americans $324 annually in vehicle maintenance.

The coalition said the average American spends 38 hours a year stuck in traffic, and the American Transportation Research Institute estimated that weekday traffic on interstate highways costs the trucking industry more than $9 billion in additional costs and 141 million work hours. ATRI said the hours translate to more than 51,000 drivers not working for a year.

TRIP, a national transportation research group, gave a presentation in early January in Little Rock and said Arkansas drivers lose $2 billion annually in vehicle repair, lost time in traffic and road condition-related crashes. TRIP reported the average driver in the Little Rock area spends 26 hours stuck in traffic.

The American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials said annual investment in infrastructure needs to increase from $88 billion to $120 billion. The backlog of repair, according to AASHTO, is $740 billion.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that infrastructure repair and maintenance needs require $101 billion annually and to improve roads and bridges $170 billion is needed.

Raising the fuel tax by itself will not solve the HTF dilemma. Joseph Giglio, a professor at Northeastern University, said in 2012 that a 1-cent increase would increase revenue by $1.8 billion.

States also levy fuel taxes. In Arkansas, drivers pay 21.8 cents a gallon for gas and 22.8 cents a gallon for diesel.

With gas prices really low, the time would seem right for a fuel tax correction that would keep up with inflation. The people who drive and pay the most in fuel taxes are the most vocal supporters.

“If you don’t have the political mustard to do it now, I don’t know when you’re going to,” Newton said.