Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Subcommittee on Highways and Transit led by Chairman David Rouzer (R-NC-07) held a hearing entitled "America Builds: The Need for a Long-Term Solution for the Highway Trust Fund."  Chairman Rouzer had the opportunity to discuss long-term funding solutions for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) that promote fiscal responsibility and ensure all highway users pay their fair share.

Spending from the HTF has outpaced revenues for decades, necessitating $275 billion in bailouts from the Treasury General Fund since 2008.  The Committee is looking to utilize both the highway bill and the upcoming reconciliation package to create parity between electric vehicles, who do not pay into the HTF, and traditional motor vehicles who contribute the majority of HTF funds through the federal gas tax. Proposals include a $200 registration fee for electric vehicles in lieu of gas taxes.  

During the hearing, the Committee had the opportunity to hear from five witnesses, including Ty Johnson, the President of the Fred Smith Company in Durham, N.C. You can watch Johnson and Rouzer's exchange here.

Full Remarks:

"Today’s hearing focuses on the importance of long-term certainty and stability for the Highway Trust Fund.  This timely discussion is part of a series of Subcommittee hearings as we work to develop and enact an on-time, multi-year surface bill.

Congress created the Highway Trust Fund in 1956 to provide a dedicated federal revenue source, based on a user-pays model, for the construction of the Interstate Highway System.  Congress began with a three-cents per gallon excise tax on gasoline allocated to the Trust Fund.  Currently, the Highway Trust Fundis funded by excise taxes on gas and diesel fuels, as well as taxes on truck tires, truck and trailer sales, and heavy vehicle users, with the most recent adjustment to the tax on gas and diesel fuels in 1993.

Since 2001, spending from the Highway Trust Fund has exceeded its revenues.  During the most recent fiscal year, the Highway Trust Fund collected nearly $50 billion in revenues and interest but spent $70.6 billion, a deficit of more than $20 billion, which is a pretty significant gap.  To ensure the Trust Fund’s continued solvency, Congress has transferred a total of $275 billion from Treasury’s General Fund to the Highway TrustFundsince 2008.

Without a serious solution, our state, local, and private sector partners risk losing a reliable funding source critical to project delivery and our national economy.  While General Fund bailouts have offered short-term relief at the expense of the individual American taxpayer, they do not address the long-term challenges that plague the Highway Trust Fund.

Thelast several surface transportation authorization bills have continued to authorize highway and mass transit authorizations beyond what the Highway Trust Fund can reasonably support.  The current surface transportation law, or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, increased Highway Trust Fund spending by more than 36 percent, but made no reforms to revenue streams, resulting in a $118 billion General Fund transfer to cover that gap.

Now, there are a number of different thoughts about how to address the fundamental structural challenges of the current funding mechanism to fund the Highway Trust Fund, and all have their pros and cons.  Meanwhile, gasoline and diesel taxes, which have remained unchanged since 1993, have lost 73 percent of their purchasing power.  If Congress had chosen to index the gas and diesel taxes to inflation back in 1993, an additional $480 billion in federal revenues would have been raised, most of which would have been deposited into the Highway Trust Fund.

Obviously, gas tax revenue will continue to decline as cars become more fuel efficient.  Electric vehicles require no fuel and therefore obviously are not paying into the Highway Trust Fund.  CBO estimates gas tax revenues, the majority of Trust Fund receipts, will decline by nearly 40 percent, over the next decade.

Fortunately, this committee is intent on addressing this shortfall in a fair and equitable manner.  Through reconciliation, this committee will propose a $200 annual registration fee on electric vehicles at the federal level, which will raise tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue for the Highway Trust Fund over the next decade to better ensure that all users of our roads are paying to maintain those roads.  While a step in the right direction and the first real attempt by Congress to address the Trust Fund’s solvency problems in more than 30 years, this fee alone, of course, will certainly not solve the estimated $142 billion shortfall. 

Given that backdrop, we look forward to hearing from our witnesses on potential solutions and new innovative methods we might employ to fund our surface transportation programs.  So therefore, I thank each of you for being here today."