What’s Ahead for Highway Funding?
Trucking industry seeks long-term solution
WE NEED TO BE SPENDING REAL MONEY, NOT THIS
FUNNY MONEY THAT CONGRESS HAS COME UP WITH TO AVOID MAKING TOUGH DECISIONS.
—DARRIN ROTH, DIRECTOR OF HIGHWAY
OPERATIONS, AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS
By Steve Brawner Contributing Writer
A Senate vote July 31 to send a bill
to the president’s desk ensured that the Highway Trust Fund will be solvent until May. Then what? That’s a question highway funding
advocates, including those associated with the motor carrier industry, long have been asking themselves and will continue to ask until Congress finally creates a long-term solution. The latest bill passed by Congress
in July provided $10.9 billion to shore up the fund and came just as it was nearing insolvency. Had that happened, states would have been reimbursed for highway expenses only as money became available, paralyzing certain projects. The Arkansas Highway and
ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 4 2014
Transportation Department had already put some projects on hold because of the uncertainty. Funding for the bill came from
increasing customs user fees at ports, by transferring money to highways from the federal government’s Leaking Underground Storage Tanks account, and from an accounting maneuver known as pension smoothing, which allowed employers to delay contributing to pension plans, thereby temporarily raising their taxable incomes. Under a formula, they’ll make up the difference later, reducing their taxable incomes at that point. Darrin Roth, American Trucking
Associations (ATA) director of highway operations, said pension smoothing is a gimmick. “There’s no tie to transportation
use,” he said. “It’s using 10 years of rev- enue to pay for 10 months of funding. Not even as a transportation advocate but just as a citizen, that’s just wrong. We need to be spending real money, not this funny money that Congress has come up with to avoid making tough decisions.” All six members of Arkansas’
congressional delegation voted for the bill – the alternative being an insolvent Highway Trust Fund. The ATA supported an amendment
that would have shortened the exten- sion to December, when ideally a lame duck Congress would pass a long-term funding source with less fear of ret- ribution from the voters. The Senate actually did pass that amendment,
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