Jan 31 2018
US looks to Trump for a plan on freight and highway transport infrastructure
US – Not for the first time discussions of how to upgrade sagging US infrastructure are at the top of the agenda for many senior transport officials and executives, and much of this can be attributed to President Trump who promised a detailed proposal on the matter after campaigning on it up to his appointment a year ago. Earlier this month the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus (PSC) released a report of proposed solutions for improving America's infrastructure. Created in January 2017, the PSC is comprised of 48 Members of the House of Representatives evenly divided on both sides of the political aisle.
The report calls for the cap which exists on how much can be used for multimodal projects under the FAST Act’s INFRA and freight formula programmes whilst stabilising long term finance supporting the Highways Trust Fund, a perennial problem familiar to regular readers. Also it conceives of alternative revenue streams including ad valorem style taxes based on the values of freight carried and/or mileage based user fees. The price of fuel of course remains sacrosanct as far as most politicians are concerned, despite being the shortest and fairest method of imposing charges with little or no extra administration. The report points out that the 18.4 cents per gallon user fee has not been increased for 25 years! This was most eloquently pointed out by ex DoT boss Ray LaHood in 2015.
The PSC is no lightweight operation, its major success to date was to push through a bipartisan health scheme in July last year going directly against the wishes of the President and producing an acceptable way to ‘fix’ Obamacare. The new report, ‘Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure’, can be read in full hereand is prefaced by the chilling possibility that infrastructure overall may be facing a funding deficit possibly equating to $2 trillion by 2025 at the current rate of investment. With Congress supplementing the Highway Trust fund for the past decade at a cost of over $140 billion the situation deserves to be properly addressed. Read more
Source: HANDY SHIPPING GUIDE