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The House has been in recess all week, which provided time for the private sector to do some meaningful work. I joined a coalition of organizations to send a high profile letter to congress supporting a long-term federally funded highway bill. In the discussions of financing the bill one of the concepts is to roll back the federal role in the highway process. The practice is known as "devolution." The Federal tax would dial down and so would the authority of the federal government. The states would take control of all highway safety, construction, repairs etc. It is a horrible idea. Safety would be compromised and no consideration of where the states would make up the money gap with the shrinking of federal funds. Some federal rules arguably increase costs and slow construction however, decimating the federal funding for our nations most critical infrastructure is not going to make it any better. Devolution does not empower states as the proponents suggest, just the opposite, it saddles them with 90 percent of the fiscal responsibility to support highways that, under the Constitution, the federal government has an obligation to maintain.
The MRF joins a healthy group of organizations on the letter such as American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO), US Chamber of Commerce, American Trucking Association, and a host of others. This letter is going to every member of the House and Senate. The letter is still gaining support and therefore has been embargoed until public release so it cannot be shared publicly yet.
The MRF also joined another coalition this week, the Alliance For Toll Free Interstates (AFTI). They have a paid lobbyist, a paid PR team and a website. The website is where you come in, more on that later. Like I mentioned in last weeks wrap up, AFTI's sole mission is to keep toll collectors from popping up on roads that have never been tolled before. They have been successful so far in keeping new tolls from roads. The MRF officially joined and has been added to the website. You should checkout their website: http://www.tollfreeinterstates.com. Why should you check out the website? To sign the online petition of course. Please take 30 seconds to sign, check out the "about" tab to see the long and distinguished list of groups supporting this bill.
By the numbers: According to USDOT drivers in the USA ticked off three trillion miles driven last year. This is the highest miles driven since 2007 and the second highest since data collection has begun, 79 years ago. This is why we need a robust highway bill; our roads are in the worst shape with some the highest use since 1936.
Nine states have raised their gas tax since 2013. Wyoming, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Iowa. But we cannot get support for a small federal increase? Wyoming and Iowa both raised their taxes by a whopping 10 cents.
$2.6 million: That’s the amount the federal government doled out this week to thirteen cities to implement real time travel information. Think cameras and sensors to collect congestion data so travelers can take alternate routes or use mass transit.
Until next week, Jeff Hennie