U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

30–253 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

BUILDING A 21ST-CENTURY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR 

AMERICA: LONG-TERM FUNDING FOR HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT PROGRAMS 

(115–38) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 7, 2018 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-transportation?path=/ 

browsecommittee/chamber/house/committee/transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, 

Vice Chair 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

RANDY K. WEBER, SR., Texas 

DOUG LAMALFA, California 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania 

PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan 

JOHN J. FASO, New York 

A. DREW FERGUSON IV, Georgia 

BRIAN J. MAST, Florida 

JASON LEWIS, Minnesota 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut, Vice 

Ranking Member 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

JARED HUFFMAN, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

DONALD M. PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT

SAM GRAVES, Missouri, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

DOUG LAMALFA, California 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania, Vice Chair 

PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan 

JOHN J. FASO, New York 

A. DREW FERGUSON IV, Georgia 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex Officio) 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

JARED HUFFMAN, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

DONALD M. PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon (Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

WITNESSES 

John C. Schroer, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Transportation, 

on behalf of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation 

Officials: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

Responses to questions for the record from Hon. Grace F. Napolitano, 

a Representative in Congress from the State of California ....................... 59 

Michael Lewis, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Transportation, 

on behalf of the Western Road Usage Charge Consortium (RUC West): 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60 

Responses to questions for the record from Hon. Rick Larsen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington ............................. 65 

Chris Spear, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Trucking Associations: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

Responses to questions for the record from Hon. Rick Larsen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington ............................. 84 

Edward L. Mortimer, Executive Director, Transportation Infrastructure, U.S. 

Chamber of Commerce: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 85 

Responses to questions for the record from Hon. Rick Larsen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington ............................. 98 

Thea M. Lee, President, Economic Policy Institute: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 99 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Report, ‘‘Matrix of Illustrative Surface Transportation Revenue Options,’’ published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation 

Officials ................................................................................................................. 109 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

Joint written statement of Nathan Nascimento, Vice President, Freedom 

Partners and Brent Gardner, Chief Government Affairs Officer, Americans 

for Prosperity ........................................................................................................ 117 

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(1) 

BUILDING A 21ST-CENTURY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR AMERICA: LONG-TERM FUNDING 

FOR HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT PROGRAMS 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2018 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

2167 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sam Graves (Chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. The subcommittee will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at 

any point. I want to welcome everybody. I especially want to welcome our witnesses today. I know some of you have come from a 

ways, and we do appreciate it. 

The question before us today is how we ensure that we have resources to build and maintain a surface transportation system that 

will meet the needs of the Nation and remain competitive in the 

21st century. 

The movement of freight is expected to increase by 40 percent 

over the next 30 years, while vehicle miles traveled are projected 

to increase by nearly 20 percent. At the same time, driverless vehicles and other advances in technology are going to change the way 

freight and passengers move through our transportation network, 

and our system needs to keep pace with these changes. 

Unfortunately, our current method of funding our Federal transportation programs is no longer sustainable. Beginning as early as 

the spring of 2020, States may have to halt construction of surface 

transportation projects because, once again, the Highway Trust 

Fund will not be able to meet its obligations. 

There are many reasons for this, and, obviously, the current 

motor fuel taxes and other user fees bring in less money, fuel economy standards have increased, and not all users pay into the trust 

fund. But the fact remains the Highway Trust Fund is going broke 

and we have to act to fix that. 

Continuing to rely on bailouts from the General Fund is not the 

answer. There simply isn’t enough money left in the couch cushions. We need to work together to reform the Highway Trust Fund 

to ensure that users that benefit from the system pay into the system. We need a long-term sustainable solution that gives our State 

and local partners the certainty they need to plan and build their 

projects. We need a solution so we can build a modern and efficient 

2 

transportation system, a system that will move people and goods 

efficiently, grow American jobs, and ensure that we remain competitive in the global marketplace. 

Our witnesses today are going to offer potential solutions and 

discuss some of the innovative new approaches to funding our surface transportation programs. And, again, I thank you all for being 

here. 

I will now recognize Ranking Member Norton of the subcommittee for her statement. 

Ms. NORTON. I want to thank you, Chairman Graves, for this 

hearing. And I think anyone who has traveled the streets of the 

Nation’s Capital, or the highways leading into the Nation’s Capital 

will also say thank you for today’s hearing on how to fund the 

highway and transit infrastructure of our country so that it is sustainable, so that we don’t have to come back in literally a few 

months because the Highway Trust Fund has run out of funds, as 

if that were any surprise. 

I do believe that anyone who heard Secretary Chao’s testimony 

yesterday will agree that they did not hear any real plan for investments in infrastructure, but I am encouraged by what appears to 

be the President’s openness to higher gas taxes. One thing seems 

clear, it takes money to fix the highways, and for a quarter of a 

century we have been under the illusion that that is not really the 

case. 

So I hope that the President’s apparent openness to higher gas 

taxes can inspire the committees of jurisdiction, the Highway Ways 

and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, to finally, at last, act. 

Last year, Chairman Graves and I got 250 Members of Congress, 

with very robust representation on both sides of the aisle, to sign 

onto a letter to the leadership of the Ways and Means Committee 

urging a prominent solution to this Highway Trust Fund crisis. 

In this letter, we specifically urged a long-term dedicated userbased revenue stream that can support transportation and infrastructure investments. I mean, I hope those words don’t sound like 

cliche ́s. It is the only way to say them, and we have been saying 

them now for decades without any results. 

We do all agree on two things: The importance of infrastructure 

investment to our national economy, and the need for real investment to improve our infrastructure. Our disagreements start with, 

and perhaps end with, how to pay for it. 

It seems to me that today’s subcommittee hearing shows that we 

are well past the point of glossing over the problem and, again, 

saying the taboo words ‘‘all options are on the table.’’ What are 

they? Congress needs to make tough decisions, as always, and find 

a permanent long-term revenue stream for our highways and 

bridges. 

Many of the so-called options, such as finding cheaper ways to 

borrow, will not produce real revenue to make a difference in our 

infrastructure backlog. Other options, such as public-private partnerships—and I commend the committee for the special Panel on 

Public-Private Partnerships on which I was among those who 

served, because this panel did a very thorough investigation of P3s. 

3 

But I believe that all those who served on that special panel will 

agree that P3s are, perhaps, best seen as a rather expensive 

scheme to borrow private money, certainly borrow more money 

than we borrow by the Federal Government, to do the same thing. 

Far too many projects simply have no revenue stream attached to 

them to pay for a P3. And, of course, you have to pay for the profit 

margin as well. Transit P3s rely on dedicating decades of future 

tax revenue to pay the investors and slashing labor benefits to protect profits. 

Yet another option, tolling. Let’s deal with that one and see 

where the American people stand on tolling. A Rasmussen survey 

found that just 22 percent of Americans favor putting tolls on interstate highways for infrastructure maintenance. Three times that 

many, or 65 percent, are opposed to turning the Nation’s interstate 

highways into toll roads. 

Pushing tolling on urban areas is just not the answer. That 

leaves real user fees. In other words, we are back to where we 

started, back to where the Eisenhower administration started us. 

And if we think we are smarter, we certainly haven’t proved it 

since then. 

The politics of raising the gas tax has paralyzed the Congress for 

a quarter of a century. And yet, 24 States who are represented by 

Members of Congress have simply not had the same hesitation, including some deeply conservative States that have raised their gas 

taxes over the past 4 years. 

Today, I am very pleased we will hear that the U.S. Chamber of 

Commerce, State departments of transportation, and the trucking 

industry support higher gas taxes. These are the folks who are 

going to have to pay them, and they are for them. We have heard 

multiple reports, of course, that the President supports the gas tax. 

So I think and hope that with this hearing, the reality is beginning 

to settle in that there is what appears to be an American majority 

for raising the gas tax. 

The FAST Act also funded an alternative funding demonstration 

program for States to experiment. I thought that was a great leap 

forward. It was only $20 million, as I recall. Today, we will hear 

from the Colorado Department of Transportation, on behalf of the 

Western Road Usage Charge Consortium. They will describe the 

possible future of a mileage-based user fee and the benefits this 

system can have on providing a sustainable long-term funding 

stream. It is really the only new idea. 

In the new world of Uber, Lyft, and autonomous vehicles, there 

are many unknowns, and I am pleased that our subcommittee has 

had hearings on some of those unknowns. And we don’t know how 

these technologies may affect our infrastructure assets over time. 

However, in the immediate term, we face a massive infrastructure 

backlog that continues to mount while Congress does nothing, and 

that needs to be rectified first. These new technologies do not eliminate that need. 

I am grateful, again, to Chairman Graves for holding this hearing and look forward to our continued work together to hold the 

Ways and Means Committee’s feet to the fire to deliver the funding 

for our Nation’s highway and transit systems. We can’t afford to 

wait any longer. 

4 

I thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. I now turn to the chairman of the full 

committee, Bill Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Chairman Graves. Thanks for holding 

this hearing today. 

Thanks for the panel coming today. I think that the panel may 

have different ideas on how to get where we need to go, but I think 

we are all on the same page that we need to go there. So, again, 

I am looking forward to hearing from all of you. 

I will say—look, I have been very excited that we have had a 

President of the United States in his inaugural address utter the 

word ‘‘infrastructure.’’ I don’t think we have had anybody say that 

since maybe Lincoln. He uttered ‘‘internal improvements,’’ and the 

internal improvements of the 1800s are today the improvements to 

the infrastructure. 

I was pleased he put out a plan. Some of it was, I thought, good. 

Some of it was not so good. Some of it we need to work on and 

maybe improve upon it. 

I know the ranking member talked about P3s. I do not think 

they are a silver bullet. I do think that we can enhance them. It 

is a tool in the toolbox. And when we are talking about infrastructure and improving highways and bridges, I don’t think that is necessarily what we are talking about, tolling roads, at least not in my 

district, in my State, are you going to toll a road. We took an attempt at that in 1981 in the northern tier and that fell flat. 

There are things we need to do in the permitting process. The 

President, I think, is right, reducing that time. I think we have all 

seen these road projects take an average of about 14 years. That 

is entirely too long. And I know that MAP–21 and in the FAST Act, 

we have done some things to push forward reforms on streamlining, but I think we can still do more. And I think that it is important that the focus which we did in the FAST Act needs to— 

the intended purpose of the Highway Trust Fund was to build the 

Interstate Highway System. Then over the years, we kept diluting 

it and diluting it. We need to get back to that and improving that. 

I know in my State, I talk about I–81 all the time. And I know 

that we have the commissioner from Tennessee. It happens to run 

through Tennessee also. But if you go through the six States, New 

York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, 

they may not all have the same wherewithal to do things. 

Some States, and I will be interested to hear from the commissioner today about, you know, he has got I think nine interstates 

running through his district. I–81 is important to me; I am not so 

sure how important it is to Tennessee, and if he is willing to spend 

State dollars on that highway—but that is what the Federal Government’s job is, to say, Look, we are going to put two more lanes 

on I–81, or we are going to do this highway. It is critical to Pennsylvania. Maryland has 18 miles. Tennessee may say, well, I–81 is 

not that important to us, so you better give us a push and you better give us some money to help us do this. So, again, I am interested in hearing that and hearing from all of you. 

My intent is hopefully working with the Democrats on the committee to put together a big, broad bipartisan infrastructure bill. 

And as the ranking member pointed out, we can put all we want 

5 

in there about revenues, but it has to go to the Ways and Means 

Committee. I think that it takes Presidential leadership to do the 

things we need to do, and, quite frankly, how do you fund it? I 

know Ranking Member DeFazio has ‘‘A Penny for Progress.’’ It is 

a good idea. There are lots of ideas out there. 

But the easiest one for us to all understand, not that it is easy 

to pass or increase, is what we pay at the pump, and we haven’t 

done it for 25 years; we haven’t increased that. Thirty-one States 

have done it. There has been no political price to pay for it. In fact, 

it is pretty popular in the States they have done it in. Indiana, a 

Republican State, did it; South Carolina, a Republican State, did 

it. Pennsylvania, when they were controlled by Republicans in both 

Chambers and the Governor, did. And many—Utah has done it, 

which is maybe the reddest of the reddest States. And so it has 

been done, and nobody has paid the political price for it. 

I believe we will pay a political price if the trust fund runs out 

in October of 2020, when it is projected. For those that forget what 

the political calendar looks like, that is October before the Presidential election. So we are going to pay the price if we don’t address this; and we already are paying it in congestion and, you 

know, bad roads, failing bridges across this country. 

So I for one think it is time to do it. The President has said he 

would support that. And, again, move forward. The time is now. It 

takes Presidential leadership to do this, but we need to invest in 

our infrastructure. 

Now, a lot of folks on my side, and I get it, and a lot of folks 

on the other side may not be too warm and fuzzy on an increase 

to the user fee right before an election, but there is always a lame 

duck session. 

So I think it is important we put a document out there, we get 

a debate started in this country, and then the timing of it, we will 

figure that as we move forward. 

But I also want to point out to those on my side in Congress talk 

about the user fee—and that is what it is, a user fee—that it is regressive. And I come from rural Pennsylvania. It is a regressive 

fee. Those people in my district will pay more, because they use the 

roads more. In fact, that is their only alternative. They don’t have 

any other way to get around. But that regressive tax also has a 

progressive benefit to those folks in my district. The most rural 

counties in America, for every dollar they put in, they get $1.70 

back. You can’t build roadways from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia unless the population centers subsidize my roadway. 

So when we talk about transit doesn’t pay into the trust fund, 

they don’t. We subsidize SEPTA [Southeastern Pennsylvania 

Transportation Authority]. We subsidize the Pittsburgh Transit 

Authority at 30 percent. If you go to my district, a rural district, 

they are subsidizing those roadways from 50 to 70 percent. 

So we need to back off and look at this in a different way. It is 

what Republicans have done historically. The three great infrastructure Presidents are Lincoln with the Transcontinental Railroad; Teddy Roosevelt, the Panama Canal; and Eisenhower with 

the Interstate Highway System. 

So, again, it is something that there is a Federal responsibility. 

Even Adam Smith said it; and that is why we put that up there 

6 

to remind us. When we all want to quote Adam Smith, he said it 

is erecting and maintaining infrastructure to promote commerce. 

And then, of course, the Constitution is pretty clear to me, also. 

So it is a role of ours. I have gone over 1 minute and 17 seconds, 

which I never do, but I am so passionate about this that I felt— 

I am glad that Chairman Graves has indulged me. 

So, with that, I am looking forward to hearing from you and I 

thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. I now turn to Ranking Member Peter 

DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

In February 2017, we convened a hearing in this room to talk 

about investing in infrastructure. There was consensus we needed 

to invest. There were a number of ideas out there that were practical. Here we are 13 months later talking about the same thing. 

You know, it is time to stop talking and do something. I mean, this 

is getting absolutely absurd. 

You know, as the chairman said, 31 States have raised substantial revenue, 24 just with gas taxes, others with a mix like my 

State of fees and taxes. No one has lost their election. No one, for 

the gutless wonders I work with, no one has lost their election— 

in fact, in New Jersey, the only two people who lost were two Republican State senators who voted against the gas tax increase. 

Now, I am sure it was a coincidence, but it sure as hell didn’t 

help them. But around here it is like, oh my God, we can’t even. 

I mean, I came out with ‘‘A Penny for Progress’’ to make people 

think how pathetic they are. I say to them, you are going to lose 

your election if gas goes up 11⁄2 cents a gallon? It probably went 

up 2 cents a gallon while you were driving to work today because 

something happened in the Middle East, or the oil companies needed more profits. One and a half cents a gallon, borrow $500 billion, 

pay it back, no unfunded debt. Well, we can’t do that. Talk to the 

Speaker. Oh, that is a tax increase. Can’t do that, we don’t increase 

taxes. 

Well, if you don’t increase taxes, we are not having an infrastructure bill and we are doing nothing, and we are just sitting here 

jawing. That is all we are doing, sitting here jawing and pretending. That is the reality. 

You know, P3s have come up. We had a 6-month-long select 

panel meet on that issue; and at the end, the bipartisan consensus 

was P3s are a nice tool. And the biggest advocates we had before 

us from Wall Street and providers, Macquarie Capital and others, 

admitted they can’t address more than 10 to 12 percent of our infrastructure needs, because the only places that pay back are in 

major urban areas and have high volumes of traffic—ironically, in 

blue areas. Those are really the only places that are viable for P3s. 

So that is not a solution, it is a tool. Some say, Oh, let’s do VMT. 

Tomorrow? No. Next week? No. This year? No. Maybe 10 years 

from now. Yeah. We are not ready to go to VMT. So anybody that 

says, ‘‘oh, let’s just do VMT’’—that is what the Speaker has said, 

‘‘oh, I like VMT’’—you can put it off into the distant future. Oh, we 

will do that someday. Meanwhile, the country falls apart. And we 

are losing productivity, we are wasting fuel, people are damaging 

their vehicles, and we just can’t get there. 

7 

Now, we hear a lot about, oh my God, the magic solution is just 

to deal with the horrible delays with environmental reviews. All we 

have to do is get rid of NEPA and, whew, we save more money 

than it could cost to rebuild the infrastructure. Really? No. In fact, 

the one report that people rely on by some guy who works at—a 

hack at a think tank named Common Good quoted reports that actually contradicted his conclusions. They said the biggest problem 

is funding, it is not the delays. 

Yeah, you are right, for 4 percent of the projects that involve 

Federal money, there’s 96 over here, 4 over here—it takes a little 

more than 3 years, on average, because these are huge projects 

with major impacts that people have concerns about and it takes 

a little while to work that stuff through. Maybe we adopt the Chinese model and say, ‘‘hey, don’t worry about it, I am knocking on 

your door, the bulldozer is down the street. It is coming; your house 

is gone; your property is gone; we are building a new highway 

here.’’ We could adopt that model. 

In fact, John Mica offered that in a bill a few years ago until I 

pointed out that allowing the President the authority to waive all 

laws would allow that to happen. Then Jerry Nadler chimed in and 

said, ‘‘oh, this is great, because then we could use illegal immigrants, too, and it would be cheaper to do the projects.’’ He was 

kidding, of course. 

So no, that is a myth. Yeah, can we improve it more? Have we 

improved it more? Yes. Are there improvements pending that DOT 

has adopted? Yes. Are there some other things we could do to 

tweak it around the edges for these major projects? Maybe, sure, 

and I am open to that. But to say this is a magic wand? Ninetyfive percent of the projects get categorical exclusions. There is no 

delay. There is no evaluation. They are eligible. So let’s cut the BS. 

I mean, seriously. 

Now, Secretary Chao came yesterday, apparently. I am sorry I 

couldn’t be here. I had a medical appointment and tried to get 

here. I drove 120 miles to catch a plane, got canceled; drove 120 

miles back, took another plane yesterday, couldn’t get here. So, 

anyway, she said she came with no solutions or pay-fors. Well, then 

that means we are dead in the water if she represents the views 

of this administration. This is not going to come from Congress. 

You know, the President supports a gas tax. I will stand next to 

the President. I heard in a meeting where he may have said something about a substantial increase in the gas tax. I have never confirmed that he said that, but I also said in that meeting when one 

Republican Senator said, oh, those Democrats all just attack you, 

I said, well, if he did that, I would stand next to him. This would 

be bipartisan. It has been bipartisan in every State. Nobody has 

lost their election over this. 

What is the problem? The problem is the Speaker is ideologically 

opposed to Federal investment and increasing taxes in any form, 

no matter how much it benefits the Nation, ideologically opposed. 

And the rest of his team, that would be McCarthy and Brady, are 

following him. There hasn’t even been a single hearing in Ways 

and Means on revenues for the Highway Trust Fund or infrastructure. And until we see that, until they hold a hearing and we see 

some progress, we would just be wasting our time over here to 

8 

move forward or say we are going to move forward with some legislation that isn’t going to be paid for or financed. 

Now, we need Presidential leadership, I agree with the chairman 

there. We need Presidential leadership. And if he would stand up 

and say he wants a gas tax, Bill would stand on his right, I would 

stand on his left, or I will stand on his left and Bill can stand on 

his right, I don’t care, and we will be with him. 

So that is where we are at. That is the truth of it. You have all 

got some ideas. I haven’t read all the testimony yet. I am sure they 

are all great ideas, but we have to have real money, plain and simple. Thank you. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. I will now turn to Congressman Duncan to introduce our first witness. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to welcome all the witnesses, but I especially want to welcome my good 

friend, Commissioner John Schroer, who is starting his eighth year 

as our commissioner of transportation in Tennessee. 

And he has done a great job. He came in and made some changes 

in some projects that have saved the Tennessee taxpayers $610 

million in the time he has been in office. The Tennessee DOT has 

remained operating debt-free and on a pay-as-you-go basis. And 

then he and our great Republican Governor, Bill Haslam, got 

through the first gas tax increase in Tennessee in 30 years; the IMPROVE Act, which will fund 962 road and bridge projects across 

all 95 counties; and also, in addition to the State projects, will provide an additional $105 million annually for cities and counties to 

support local infrastructure needs. 

I might add that my younger sister, I tell people all the time she 

is much more powerful than I am, because I am one of 435, she 

is one of 33 State senators. And she supported the gas tax increase, 

although I do tease her and tell her that I think she is a little more 

liberal than I am, and she teases back and says that everybody’s 

more liberal than I am. So we go back and forth a little bit. 

But, Commissioner Schroer has done an outstanding job, and in 

recognition of that, has become the national president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. 

And it is an honor for me to welcome him here to the subcommittee, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to do 

so. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN C. SCHROER, COMMISSIONER, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, ON BEHALF 

OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND 

TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS; MICHAEL LEWIS, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, 

ON BEHALF OF THE WESTERN ROAD USAGE CHARGE CONSORTIUM (RUC WEST); CHRIS SPEAR, PRESIDENT AND 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS; EDWARD L. MORTIMER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE, U.S. CHAMBER OF 

COMMERCE; AND THEA M. LEE, PRESIDENT, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Schroer. 

9 

Mr. SCHROER. Thank you very much. Thank you, Congressman 

Duncan, for that great introduction. 

Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Norton, and members of the 

subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. 

My name is John Schroer. I am the commissioner of transportation 

for the State of Tennessee, and I am also honored to serve as the 

2017–2018 president of the American Association of State Highway 

and Transportation Officials, otherwise known as AASHTO. 

I would like to first express appreciation to you on behalf of the 

State DOTs for your leadership, along with your Senate and House 

colleagues, in passing the FAST Act in December 2015. The FAST 

Act continues to fulfill the constitutional directive that investment 

in transportation is a core Federal responsibility. While the FAST 

Act does not expire until 2020, President Trump recently laid out 

his infrastructure plan. The key component to the President’s plan 

is for the Federal Government to invest $200 billion over the next 

10 years that would create an additional $1.3 trillion in investment 

from States, local government, and the private sector. 

While leveraging Federal dollars is a great goal, there is only so 

much that can be done. Currently, 80 percent of the $217 billion 

invested in highway and bridge programs comes from State and 

local governments. States are already answering the call to action 

for increasing transportation investments. As has already been 

said, 31 States, including my home State of Tennessee, have successfully passed transportation funding bills. 

In 2017, I worked with Governor Bill Haslam to develop and 

pass the IMPROVE Act to provide increased funding for transportation for the first time in Tennessee in 30 years. This conservative, responsible, and user-based approach raises the gas tax by 

6 cents, and diesel tax by 10 cents. This was no easy sale to the 

Tennessee Legislature. Finally, after 2 years of preparation, the 

only way we were able to get this bill passed was to wrap it around 

the largest single tax cut bill in the history of the State of Tennessee. The tax cuts were twice the increase of the fuel tax. 

AASHTO member States continue to believe that the best way 

to fund the Nation’s crumbling infrastructure is through sustainable formula-based funding. The Highway Trust Fund has provided 

stable, reliable, and substantial highway transit funding for decades since its inception in 1956. However, today, the solvency of 

the trust fund is in jeopardy. 

Since 2008, the Highway Trust Fund has been sustained through 

a series of General Fund transfers, now amounting to $140 billion. 

Annual HTF spending is estimated to exceed receipts by $23 billion 

by fiscal year 2027. AASHTO estimates that the States may see a 

40-percent drop from fiscal year 2020 to the following year. For 

Tennessee, this would represent a $400 million reduction in our annual budget, wiping out the increase we received from passing the 

IMPROVE Act, plus an additional $150 million annually. This represents an overall 20-percent reduction in our total budget, and a 

45-percent reduction in our heavy building program. A cut of this 

magnitude will eliminate our ability to make significant inroads in 

addressing congestion through capacity expansion, and Tennessee 

would largely become a maintenance-only State. 

10 

AASHTO strongly believes that the congressional infrastructure 

package must focus on direct funding distributed to States and 

transit agencies through formula programs, rather than through 

grants or Federal financing support. AASHTO’s member DOTs already rely on various forms of financing and procurement, ranging 

from bonding, TIFIA credit assistance, State infrastructure banks, 

and public-private partnership, just among some of the tools. 

In Tennessee, a State that consistently has its roads ranked in 

the top five in the Nation, we are a pay-as-you-go State. We have 

no transportation debt and have no roads that are tolled. We rely 

solely on the trust fund’s formula money and State revenues. 

While we do not object to the current options to capital markets 

for DOTs, we would strongly object to increasing those options at 

the expense of the Highway Trust Fund. There is ample documented evidence that shows infrastructure investment is critical 

for the long-term economic growth, increasing productivity, employment, household income, and exports. 

Conversely, without improving our Nation’s infrastructure, deteriorating conditions can produce a severe drag on the overall economy. In light of new capacity and upkeep needs for every State in 

the country, the current trajectory of the Highway Trust Fund, the 

backbone of Federal Surface Transportation Program, is simply 

unsustainable, as it will have insufficient resources to meet current 

Federal investment levels beyond fiscal year 2020. 

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I 

am happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Thank you, Mr. Schroer. 

Next we have Mr. Michael Lewis, who is the executive director 

of the Colorado Department of Transportation, and he is here on 

behalf of the Western Road Usage Charge Consortium. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Chairman Graves and Ranking Member 

Norton, for the invitation to testify before the subcommittee today 

specifically on a possible alternative funding mechanism, what we 

call the road usage charge, or RUC. You may also hear these systems referred to as a mileage-based user fee or vehicle miles traveled fee. 

I am pleased to be here representing RUC West, a voluntary coalition of 14 western State departments of transportation committed 

to collaborative research and information sharing on the development of a new funding method for transportation infrastructure. 

The primary goal of this coalition is to build public sector organizational capacity and expertise in RUC systems, including associated 

policy, administration, and technology issues. 

The Colorado Department of Transportation is facing a nearly $1 

billion annual funding shortfall over the next 10 years, and is exploring transportation funding alternatives, as the gas tax is unable to meet the infrastructure investment needs of the transportation system. To put it in simple terms, we need to nearly double 

our current amount of funding to meet the transportation needs of 

Colorado. 

Sadly, our State’s funding situation is not unique. It is a dilemma that is shared by all States across our country. This dilemma is driven by one simple fact: The gas tax, as we know it, 

is not sustainable. For many years, gas taxes have worked well as 

11 

a user fee to fund transportation. The more someone drove and 

used the system, the more fuel they purchased, the more they paid 

toward maintaining and improving our system. 

New fuel economy standards and the growing adoption of alternative fuel vehicles have upset that balance. Alternative fuel vehicles, including full electric, hybrid, compressed natural gas, liquid 

natural gas and propane, pay little or no fuel taxes, regardless of 

how much they use our highways. Their adoption and use are not 

bad things. They have significant positive benefits. But it also 

means that we must find a new, fair, and equitable way to collect 

user fees to adequately maintain the transportation system we all 

rely on. 

So what are Colorado and other members of RUC West doing to 

prepare for a future of more electric and alternative fuel vehicles 

and increased fuel efficiency? We are working cooperatively to research and evaluate a mileage-based fee system as an alternative 

funding mechanism to replace the gas tax. 

As the number of people in Colorado increases, so do the number 

of vehicle miles traveled and the wear and tear on our roads. 

Under a road usage charge, vehicles pay for the miles traveled, 

which equitably charges for the usage of the system, regardless of 

fuel type or fuel efficiency. Using pooled resources, RUC West has 

advanced research in the field by examining the impacts of changing vehicle fuel economy on State transportation funding, the effects of RUC on rural residents, protection of user privacy, parameters for RUC per-mile rate setting, and evasion and enforcement 

policy options. 

A number of States have already deployed pilot programs. In 

California, funding is used to evaluate a pay at the pump option 

for RUC, which includes electric charging stations. Colorado is 

working with the agricultural community to pilot a RUC system for 

rural residents; Hawaii is researching RUC collection on manual 

and automated readings at inspection stations; Washington State 

is testing critical elements of the interoperable multijurisdictional 

RUC system; and Oregon, the leader, continues to refine and improve their operational RUC system. 

These individual State efforts demonstrate the complexity and 

sophistication of RUC West member States and their understanding of the RUC system. In short, our States are working as 

laboratories, and are producing meaningful, replicable results. 

RUC West is demonstrating that the type of cooperation and collaboration needed to define and implement a new model for transportation funding is possible. In less than 5 years, we have gone 

from one State with a pilot program to many States with pilot activities and supporting legislation. 

Are there questions and concerns about RUC? Of course, there 

are. However, CDOT’s recent pilot efforts demonstrate that the 

questions have answers and the concerns can be relieved. Our pilot 

allowed drivers of different vehicle types to choose how they report 

their mileage and compare what they pay under a road usage 

charge versus the current gas tax. Participants reported high satisfaction with all aspects of the pilot program. Ninety-one percent of 

participants said they would participate in a future pilot. 

12 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, it is ideas like 

these led by States that can help answer the very nature of this 

hearing, how do we provide long-term funding for our transportation system? CDOT and RUC West will continue to explore the 

possible funding mechanisms to ensure Americans have the mobility they need for livable communities and economic health. However, we cannot stress enough that we have an immediate funding 

crisis in this country regarding infrastructure. The findings from 

these pilot programs will provide important information on how 

best to structure and implement a sustainable funding mechanism 

for the long term. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, the future is 

upon us. We value our partnership with the Federal Government 

to support this work. I appreciate the subcommittee’s time and attention to this important topic, and I will be happy to answer any 

questions you may have. Thank you very much. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 

Next, we have Mr. Chris Spear, who is the president and CEO 

of the American Trucking Associations. 

Mr. SPEAR. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Norton, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for giving ATA 

the opportunity to testify on long-term, sustainable funding solutions for surface transportation infrastructure. 

The fact that we are having this discussion today, more than 2 

years away from the expiration of the FAST Act, is welcome. It is 

a testament to the leadership of this committee and by President 

Trump, who I believe made this a front burner issue. I commend 

that. Now the hard work begins, paying for it. 

While ATA recognizes how difficult it is for Members of Congress 

to commit to, or even openly discuss the types of spending needed 

to address our ailing roads and bridges as well as the revenue raisers necessary to get there, it is very clear that doing nothing will 

impose a much higher cost on the American people, and on the industry that I represent. Each year, motorists spend more than $1,500, due to the lack of infrastructure investment. That is $500 spent repairing their vehicles and nearly $1,000 more wasted sitting in traffic. The trucking 

industry loses more than $63.4 billion every year because of congestion. That is 362,000 truck drivers sitting idle for an entire 

year. And as much as we loved the tax cut we got last year, we 

are going to give it all back, because that $63 billion is like a 9- 

percent tax on our industry. These are the costs of doing nothing. 

Our solution, the Build America Fund, is the most immediate, efficient, and conservative way to tackle this problem. We are proposing a 20 cent fee on fuel at the wholesale terminal rack, 5 cents 

per year for 4 years. Unlike tolls or mileage fees, it is extremely 

inexpensive to collect. More than 99 cents on every dollar will be 

spent on transportation programs and projects, not paying for new 

bureaucracies or lining the pockets of foreign banks. It doesn’t grow 

the budget deficit, it shores up the Highway Trust Fund, and it 

puts real money on the table, $340 billion in new additional revenue over the first 10 years. 

Here are the alternatives: Doing nothing costs drivers 15 times 

more than they pay under our proposal. Borrowing money from 

13 

China just passes the buck to future generations with interest. 

Some States, in desperation, are resorting to tolls. Just look at I– 

66, just a stone’s throw away from Capitol Hill. You have toll rates 

now up to $47 just one way for a 10-mile trip. Rhode Island is 

using a loophole in the Federal law to discriminate against trucks 

by charging a truck-only toll for more than a dozen bridges. And 

there is the idea of selling off public infrastructure to the highest 

bidder, leaving the people who rely on those facilities holding the 

bag decades after the money gained is spent. 

We offer a simple immediate solution: That same motorist currently paying $46.75 to go one way one day on I–66 would pay just 

$2 more a week under the Build America Fund for all roads and 

bridges. That is hardly regressive, and it doesn’t mortgage our future or rely on inefficient fake funding schemes like tolls. Rather, 

the Build America Fund is a no-brainer. And if the money raised 

goes back into roads and bridges, people, including ATA members, 

will gladly pay it. 

Our proposal also fulfills the Federal Government’s obligation 

under article I of the Constitution to establish roads and strengthen interstate commerce, not kick the can by devolving authority to 

cash-strapped States. This is an investment not just in our highway system, but in our economy and in jobs. Perhaps most critically, we know that providing the resources for highway safety improvements can save thousands of lives and prevent countless injuries. 

The trucking industry understands, like nobody else, roads and 

bridges are our backyard. We see them every minute of every day. 

To the 7.4 million hardworking people who move 71 percent of the 

domestic freight in this country and to most Americans, this is not 

about ideology, which is just another excuse to do nothing. 

ATA believes this is about doing what is right for America. 

Trucking pays half the tab into the Highway Trust Fund, and we 

are willing to pay more, because we know that the price for this 

investment is small compared to all the benefits we will receive. 

And that is why Ronald Reagan twice signed an increase in the 

user fee into law. He led, and our Nation prospered. Roads and 

bridges are not Republican or Democrat, they aren’t free, and they 

aren’t cheap. It is time to start investing in our future. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Next, we have Mr. Ed Mortimer, who 

is the executive director of the transportation infrastructure at the 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Mr. MORTIMER. Good morning, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Norton, members of the subcommittee. My name is Ed 

Mortimer, and I have the pleasure of serving as the executive director of transportation infrastructure at the United States Chamber of Commerce. I also serve as executive director for the Americans for Transportation Mobility Coalition, which has been established since 2000 with business, labor, and a variety of transportation stakeholders that have been advocating on behalf of the importance of a national infrastructure program. And I am honored 

to be joined by one of our management committee members, Chris 

Spear, here today. 

14 

America’s transportation network is a vast system that connects 

people and places, moves goods, and boosts our economy and ensures our quality of life and safety. It has served as the backbone 

of the Nation’s economy. As this subcommittee knows, America’s 

infrastructure is aging and in dire need of modernization. 

We believe now is the time, now in our Nation’s history, is the 

time to have this discussion and to move forward with what is the 

next system that we need to have. President Donald Trump has repeatedly announced his desire to enact an infrastructure investment plan, and many in Congress have expressed a willingness to 

advance such legislation. We were pleased to see the administration release their legislative principles, which has allowed the 

House and Senate to begin this hearing process. The national 

chamber and the Americans for Transportation Mobility Coalition 

believe that this is a once-in-a-generational opportunity for Federal 

leadership to modernize America’s infrastructure, and that this effort is critical to our Nation’s future economic success. 

As this process moves forward, the national chamber believes 

that any package should include the four following principles, and 

I will note we released these principles on January 18th on 

LetsRebuildAmerica.Com. The four principles are: Increasing the 

Federal fuel user fee by 25 cents for surface transportation 

projects; implementing a multifaceted approach for leveraging more 

public and private resources; streamlining the permitting process 

at the Federal, State, and local level; and expanding America’s 

workforce through work-based learning and immigration reform. 

We believe that business, labor, public transit advocates, and 

other key stakeholders must partner with Congress to find a longterm sustainable funding source for the Highway Trust Fund. Currently stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon, the Federal gasoline tax, as 

mentioned, has not been increased since 1993. Since then, its purchasing power has lost over 40 percent. It is the national chamber’s 

position that the simplest, most straightforward solution to this immediate problem, that we as a Nation face, is to increase the user 

fee. It is not that the user fee isn’t sustainable; it is that we 

haven’t adjusted it. Could you imagine selling a 1993 product? That 

is what we are selling U.S. infrastructure at now, at 1993 cost. 

And yes, in the long run, we know that we need to look at other 

methods to pay for future modernization of infrastructure, but 

those are down the road. We are very excited about some of the 

programs and the options that are out there. But we have a problem today, ladies and gentlemen, a problem today that needs to be 

addressed. Putting this off will continue to cause our economy to 

suffer, will infect the quality of life of all Americans, and will not 

allow us to have the economic growth that tax reform, which the 

national chamber was a big proponent of getting, we are not going 

to have the full benefits of tax reform without getting infrastructure modernization done with paying for it. 

Again, we certainly see a very critical and important role for private investment. We applaud this subcommittee for its work in 

looking at public-private partnerships. We believe that it is a tool 

in the toolkit. There needs to be more private investment. We can 

get all the public investment in the world, we are not going to solve 

all of our infrastructure needs. 

15 

So, again, enhancing and plussing up funding for current Federal 

credit programs, looking at potentially creating a new revolving 

loan program, all options that this subcommittee needs to consider, 

but private investment has to be part of the mix moving forward. 

We talked about permit streamlining. This subcommittee has 

done great work on the surface transportation side, but we need to 

codify the administration’s one Federal decision for that 2-year 

timeline to get projects through the list. And the U.S. Chamber of 

Commerce believes we need to additionally incentivize State and 

local governments, if they are going to get Federal money, that 

they also need to meet that 2-year requirement. Again, not changing environmental law, maintaining public input, but providing 

regulatory certainty. The number one reason we hear private investors aren’t investing more in U.S. infrastructure, the lack of regulatory certainty in the process. 

The bottom line is that the time to make these important investments is now. Delaying action only makes these decisions more difficult and projects costlier. Our ATM Coalition has been talking to 

people around the country. We talked to Vicki Kitchin from the 

Build Indiana Council, who said, ‘‘we need to make these investments; it is our turn now.’’ 

Our forefathers made the investments in infrastructure. Chairman Shuster talked about Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower. It 

is now our time to make those investments. We as a business community are willing to stand with you, Members of Congress, to get 

the job done. Delay is not an option. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Next, we have Ms. Thea Lee, who is 

the president of the Economic Policy Institute. Thanks for being 

here. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Norton, members of the subcommittee, for the invitation to come here 

today. My name is Thea Lee. I am president of the Economic Policy 

Institute, the Nation’s premier think tank for analyzing the effects 

of economic policy on the lives of America’s working families. 

For many years, EPI has consistently and repeatedly advocated 

for a substantial increase in investment in the Nation’s infrastructure, in light of the extraordinary benefits this would bring to the 

U.S. economy, to workers, and to American businesses. 

The first step is to keep our current infrastructure from further 

deteriorating. Allowing the Highway Trust Fund to become progressively underfunded in the coming decade would do great damage. The Highway Trust Fund is currently funded, as others have 

talked about, by the Federal gas tax, which is not indexed to inflation and has not been increased since 1993. To ensure that the 

Highway Trust Fund has the resources to fund its planned expenditures, the current gas tax should be raised, or a new dedicated 

revenue source for the HTF should be found. Adequately funding 

the HTF will also free up funding for other infrastructure needs 

not funded by the HTF, like aviation and rail. 

But I want to be clear that simply maintaining the status quo 

by finding a funding source for the HTF is far from adequate. The 

current state of U.S. infrastructure is deeply deficient, due to past 

neglect and underinvestment. So we don’t need to just maintain 

16 

current infrastructure spending; we need to substantially increase 

it. 

Our research at EPI indicates that reversing this chronic underinvestment in infrastructure will require a strong Federal role and 

a commitment of Federal resources, even beyond new resources for 

the HTF. Currently, we rely heavily on State and local governments to finance a large share of infrastructure, particularly highways and transit. This heavy reliance on State and local governments has led us to the current situation, which virtually everybody agrees is suboptimal. 

I want to highlight some of the findings from our past research 

on infrastructure. The first is that there is no free lunch or free 

road or free bridge. American households will, in the end, pay for 

improved infrastructure, either through higher taxes or through 

user fees and tolls. Too often, advocates of leveraging the private 

sector via public-private partnerships or other schemes to 

incentivize private provision of infrastructure obscure or underplay 

this basic economic truth. 

Second, the Federal Government provides some key advantages 

to financing over private actors, and even over State and local governments. The clearest advantage is that the interest rate paid on 

Federal debt is lower than what is available to private actors or the 

States, making long-term debt financing cheaper for the Federal 

Government. 

Some have claimed that State and local provision of infrastructure is more efficient, simply because these levels of Government 

are closer to end users. But this argument is clearly wrong. Economic efficiency depends on the funding mechanism, not the level 

of Government. So a project financed by the Federal Government 

through a user fee, like the gas tax or mileage fee, is no less efficient than one financed by a State government through a user fee. 

Crucially, because State and local governments are not incentivized 

to take account of externalities or regional spillovers, they may 

underinvest in key infrastructure projects. 

We know that it isn’t just, for example, Maryland residents who 

use Maryland roads and transit. Motorists and riders from other 

States do as well. So if Maryland policymakers are ignoring the potential benefits that accrue to out-of-State users, they are likely to 

underinvest in Maryland roads and transit. Virtually, all of our 

transportation systems are linked across State lines, and serve 

nonresidents as well as residents. So coordinating and prioritizing 

infrastructure projects at the Federal level can lead to significant 

efficiencies. 

And it is essential that all infrastructure projects, whether Federal or State, public or private, support good jobs with good wages, 

and explicitly incorporate key labor standards like Davis-Bacon. Infrastructure projects that pay good wages have durable benefits for 

communities and local tax bases, unlike those that seek to undermine decent wages and standards. 

Public-private partnerships and State infrastructure projects 

should meet the same high standards as federally financed 

projects. Buy America provisions, ensuring that infrastructure inputs and materials are made in America, consistent with our international obligations, are also essential for maximizing the benefits 

17 

of infrastructure investment, in terms of good jobs and strong communities. 

Traditionally, there has been bipartisan support, there has been 

business and labor support for infrastructure investment, but in recent years, some of that has eroded. 

I hope that the broad support that we heard in today’s hearing, 

and appreciate the other witnesses—I hope that that broad support 

will enable action in the near future. As many have said, and I totally agree with Mr. Mortimer, Mr. DeFazio, that the timing is urgent to act on this, that we can’t afford to ignore it any further. 

It is important for our economic health, for our global competitiveness, and for good jobs. 

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to any questions 

you might have. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. I will now turn to Chairman Shuster 

for opening questions. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. Again, thank you all for your testimony. I appreciate you being here to talk about such an important 

issue. I want to turn to Commissioner Schroer first, and maybe 

last, because I would like to hear—your State of Tennessee has— 

I think I counted nine interstate highways running through it. 

Now, I would like to think that since I–81 runs through Pennsylvania that it is as important to your State as it is mine, but I 

would like for you to talk about that, how important it is, and 

maybe some of the other roadways through your State. In Tennessee, where are you going to focus your dollars? It would seem 

to me if I was a DOT commissioner or secretary, I would focus 

them where I am going to get the best bang for the buck. 

But knowing that I–81—again, I go to I–81—it is important to 

Pennsylvania. I am not sure—I think it is pretty important to 

Maryland, but they have 18 miles of it, so they don’t have a whole 

lot of money that they have to spend to widen it. So, again, you 

have got so many interstates coming through your State, can you 

tell me which are the highest priority? Where is I–81, for instance, 

on the priority list and what are low priorities, which may affect 

other States if they are not a priority going through your State? 

Mr. SCHROER. I can assure you, I–81 is one of my top priority 

interstates. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHROER. As you said, we have nine interstates. We have 

over 1,000 miles of centerline interstate roads running through 

Tennessee. It is a pretty broad but not very tall State. But one of 

our most important roads, except for I–81, is I–40, and it goes all 

the way from, you know, the east coast to the west coast and carries a huge amount of traffic. 

The truck traffic that is on I–40 is significant and carries a whole 

lot of commerce throughout the State; I–65 north-south, I–24, same 

way. And we have to spend those dollars that we have to maintain 

and to increase any capacity that we might need on those roads. 

But those roads are all important to the State of Tennessee. 

I do want to bring attention to another interstate that is just sort 

of beginning in Tennessee, and it is I–69, and I–69 goes from Detroit to Texas. It is considered a road of national significance. We 

18 

have received over $350 million in earmarks on I–69, and we have 

put those to good use. 

We are currently working on an area around Dyersburg in northwest Tennessee for a loop around that city. We have done a lot of 

work on that road in Memphis, but there is a 70-mile stretch south 

of Dyersburg to Memphis that runs through farmland that is much, 

much more important to the whole corridor of I–69 than it is to the 

State of Tennessee. 

It is the cost of about $1.5 billion for this 70- to 75-mile road. 

It is a road project that now has to compete with every other road 

project that we have in the State of Tennessee. And we rank roads 

on prioritization from safety, congestion, and economic development; and, quite frankly, I–69 doesn’t reach any of those parameters. So it is a road that we will have a hard time funding and 

completing without some Federal investment. 

Mr. SHUSTER. What it sounds like is, quite frankly, you are not 

going to spend your precious dollars on a roadway that isn’t that 

great a benefit to Tennessee, but if I am right, I–69, I think, 

crosses through eight States. And Texas, for instance—I have been 

in Texas. I have been in Indiana. I know it is important to Indiana 

and Michigan. 

But there will be a missing link in I–69, not because you don’t 

want to build it, but because you can’t afford to build it. That is 

a perfect example of what the interstate highway program is all 

about. And I don’t want to steal Mr. DeFazio’s thunder or his visual, but the State of Oklahoma and Kansas, it sounds to me that 

could happen. I–69 could, over the years, be built and all of a sudden, there are 70 miles in Tennessee that you are not going to 

build it unless the Federal Government contributes to it and gives 

you a push or an incentive, and that is the money part. Is that accurate? 

Mr. SCHROER. We will have a hard time putting $1.5 billion in 

that road as it competes with all the other roads across the State 

of Tennessee. And if we do, it will take a long, long time to do it. 

And without that link or any other links on I–69, it is not an effective roadway for the country. And I think that is an important road 

for the United States, especially the north-south traffic. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. The Chair notes the presence of our 

colleague and good friend, Mr. Larsen. We appreciate your interest 

in this topic and your participation today. And with that, I would 

ask unanimous consent that Mr. Larsen be allowed to fully participate in today’s hearing. And, without objection, that is so ordered. 

I now turn to Ranking Member Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Lewis, you could do a real service to this committee by making us understand whether VMT is the answer to our problems. 

Now, I really don’t want to go down a rathole, but I was one of 

those who thought that, well, this may be the answer. But I am 

looking at Colorado’s comparison experiment, and we really need 

your most candid assessment here, because Colorado had the pilot 

program, and under your program, the drivers were able to compare what they would pay under a road usage charge versus curVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:09 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\115\HT\3-7-20~1\3-7-20~1.TXT JEAN
19 

rent gas tax. I wonder if you see any problems in the eventual 

transaction without a raise in the gas tax? 

If we simply converted an inadequate gas tax to a per mile, this 

is my real question, to a per mile. So status quo, but it is a permile fee at the same rate, which is inadequate, would the VMT do 

us any good, or is it inevitable that the gas tax would have to come 

up, because as people saw these comparisons they would see the 

difference? In other words, what did the pilot tell us? 

Mr. LEWIS. Right. Thank you, Ranking Member Norton. I think 

it is an excellent question. I think Mr. DeFazio raised it as well 

and many of my panel members. We are not there today. 

Ms. NORTON. You are not what? 

Mr. LEWIS. We are not there ready to implement a road usage 

charge today. That is why we have these pilot programs in place 

initiated by Oregon more than 15 years ago to test out is this a viable option. 

I had the honor of testifying before this committee maybe 5 years 

ago, and we were talking about maybe by 2025 that would be 

ready. I would say that may still be true—and I would support my 

colleagues that we need a bridge. If we are ever going to get to a 

road usage charge, we need a bridge to get there. If it is 10 years 

away, Colorado is getting into a $5 billion deficit in that 10 years 

before we are ready to implement a road usage charge. 

Ms. NORTON. But would that mean a gradual raise in the gas tax 

over time so people wouldn’t—— 

Mr. LEWIS. That is certainly one option. It is what is in place 

today. Administratively this would be the relatively easy way to go. 

I think it is a politically difficult way to go, as has been mentioned. 

But if we are going to—the concern about the sustainability, and 

some of my colleagues talked about this, the sustainability of the 

fuel tax, (A), it is not indexed. We know that. So in 25 years, we 

have lost 60 percent of its buying power. But the other thing that 

is really important to think about is we are—I believe there is no 

turning back on the evolution of motor vehicles to be operated by 

electric motors or alternative fuels. The auto manufacturers are already, you know, planning to go that route. So over time, we will 

be taking in—if we stick to the fuel tax, we will be taking in less 

and less revenue per vehicle miles. 

Ms. NORTON. So the automatic vehicles will use, what, less—— 

Mr. LEWIS. An electric vehicle will pay no fees. 

Ms. NORTON. Oh, the electric vehicle. 

Mr. LEWIS. The electric vehicle will pay no fees. A compressed 

natural gas vehicle will pay no gas tax. So those are coming, and 

I think we need to prepare ourselves for that and we need to get 

ahead of it. And I think that for every day that we delay further 

study on a potential alternative is a day that we’ll be late implementing it. That is why we feel that in the Western States it is so 

important to study more. These questions that you have raised are 

absolutely important questions. How do we operate—— 

Ms. NORTON. Are you testing the transition costs as well so that 

we would know whether or not a gradual raise in the gas tax or 

some other solution as you see the comparisons? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think that is an administrative or legislative discussion, because we see it as a potential future replacement for the 

20 

fuel tax. But in that period of time when we all know that, you 

know, we still need to make that bridge so we have sufficient revenues to fund the Highway Trust Fund, we are going to have to do 

something more than what we are doing today. 

One of the pilots that is underway right now between California 

and Oregon is to study about interoperability, how does one State 

reimburse another State for travel between States? That is something that has to be worked out. How do we do that across the 

whole country? The I–95 Corridor Coalition has a similar pilot underway to think about how would you do it in—I believe Pennsylvania and Delaware are working on that. 

There is a lot more study. We are not ready yet. I want to be 

very careful to say we are not ready to implement that yet, but it 

is an—I think what the pilots are showing—— 

Ms. NORTON. How much longer—I mean, is there a timeframe for 

the study? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think it is difficult—I would say it is, you know, it 

is probably still 10 years off before it can be fully implemented. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Lewis. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Barletta. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Many of my colleagues are probably tired of hearing me say this, 

but I grew up working in a road construction business, so I know 

firsthand how uncertainty about Federal funding impacts everyone 

from State and local governments right to the private industry. 

That is why I believe so strongly in finding a long-term, sustainable solution for the Highway Trust Fund’s revenue shortfall. 

I think that President Trump’s commitment to getting an infrastructure package passed this year provides the perfect avenue to 

do that, whether it is through a gas tax, which I have consistently 

advocated for, or another user fee. We heard Secretary Chao say 

it here yesterday that everything is on the table. This administration is open to considering all revenue sources. Charging a user fee 

to those that benefit from activity is a conservative principle. Currently, however, not all users of the trust fund are paying in. 

Mr. Schroer, can you speak to actions our States have taken or 

have looked into to ensure more users of the transportation system 

are supporting that system? 

Mr. SCHROER. Well, thank you very much. As you know, we did 

pass a new revenue bill last year, and that was a great consideration to us. And so we, as part of the bill, while we did raise gas 

taxes 6 cents and diesel fuel 10 cents, we also added a fee for electric vehicles of $100 a year, and we added a fee to alternative 

sources of fuel as well. So compressed natural gas and other types 

of fueling, we added that to the bill. So we felt like we made a start 

in looking at other options as that happened. And so we hope it has 

an impact and we think it was how we should go about it. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Going back to the idea of a gas tax increase, I recognize one concern about this idea is that it is regressive. What we 

should not overlook, however, is the financial costs from wasting 

time and fuel sitting in traffic congestion and vehicle repairs incurred from potholes and other roadway damage are also disproportionately shouldered by those with lower income. I have always 

21 

said it is better to spend money to solve a problem so that you 

never have to deal with it again, rather than keep putting a BandAid on this problem. You wouldn’t keep replacing your carpet in 

your home if your roof was leaking. You would fix the roof. 

Now, while I continue to hear all options are on the table when 

it comes to a sustainable revenue source for the trust fund, my 

question for each member of the panel is what is more important, 

the outcome of permanently fixing the Highway Trust Fund or the 

user fee mechanism deployed to fix it? If we can go down the line. 

Mr. SCHROER. Well, I think as the State of Tennessee and also 

as AASHTO, it is important for us to have a long-term sustainable 

funding source. We are completely convinced that is how it needs 

to be done. We feel it should be formula based that allows States 

to put priorities on projects as best they can. They know what is 

going on. 

And AASHTO has recommended many different options. We 

have revenue options that we have published for everyone’s consideration, but we do continually believe that a sustainable form of 

revenue is important for us. 

[AASHTO’s ‘‘Matrix of Illustrative Surface Transportation Revenue Options’’ is on pages 109–116.] 

Mr. LEWIS. And I fully concur with my colleague from Tennessee. 

And I would also add, and to you who know the construction industry, how difficult it is to plan. You can’t plan your labor, you can’t 

plan your equipment purchases if you don’t know—if you look out 

on a 10-year horizon that there is a sustainable level of funding. 

So when money is dropped on us, which is great, we will never 

turn it away, it is very difficult to put programs out because our 

industry is perhaps not prepared for it. And so I think that sustainability and that predictability of the funding source is so critical to efficiency in this system. 

Mr. SPEAR. I would say it is all about the money. You all know 

how to do a highway bill. You have done the FAST Act, MAP–21, 

SAFETEA–LU. I mean, you guys know how to write a highway bill. 

That is not the issue here. The issue is funding it, real money, putting real money on the table. 

I think it is imperative that this President put the full power of 

his office behind this. If he wants it done this year, he is going to 

have to lead up here. He is going to have to work collaboratively 

with you, not just throw everything on the table. Pick something, 

pick several things, but to get to the number that we are talking 

about, you are going to have to really get behind this all the way 

through the process and work collaboratively with you. We are here 

as a panel to really support you through that process, and I think 

that is really important. 

Beyond the money, I think 10 years is really a good swath of 

time to play with here, because it provides certainty. If you are 

going to build a real major project, whether it be a bypass, a 

bridge, a tunnel, you are not going to do it in a matter of 12 

months; you are going to do it over the course of 3 to 4 years. And 

to have that kind of certainty out there at the State and local level 

is really significant, and I think you will see a lot of economic gain 

22 

from that type of certainty. So beyond the money, I think the 10 

years is really an important element. 

Mr. MORTIMER. I couldn’t agree more. I would also concur that 

the national chamber put out its 25 cent gas tax, not because we 

always love doing that, because we looked at all the other options. 

But we are willing to work with the administration and Congress. 

It has got to be long-term sustainable, as Chris said, 10 years. If 

you are going to modernize infrastructure, it has to be a 10-year 

plan. 

So we have been patchworking this for the last 15 years. If we 

are going to truly deal with it, let’s come up with that long-term 

sustainable funding source. And I think what I have heard today 

is that, while vehicle miles traveled has some outcomes in the future, we are not there. So if somebody can come to us with a longterm sustainable source that is going to invest and modernize infrastructure, the national chamber is going to be all for it. 

Mr. BARLETTA. That is like Dippin’ Dots. It is the ice cream of 

the future. It is always the ice cream of the future. 

Ms. LEE. And, yes, you know, while we are always concerned 

with the progressivity or the regressivity of any funding mechanism, I think in this case, the user fee, the gas tax, or other user 

fee is warranted to make sure that Highway Trust Fund because 

the benefits are so widespread, as you said, and the impact of congestion and other things fall on everybody. But as I also said, you 

know, our belief is that we need additional funding beyond making 

the Highway Trust Fund whole, and that could be done in a more 

progressive way, particularly at the Federal level and should be. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I am going to get the chairman his own copy, but this is our latest version, and since he brought it up and Mr. Schroer really underlined the need for Federal investment, I mean, when you talked 

about that section of I–69 in your State that cost $1.2 billion, which 

is delivering benefits for the nationwide system, not just for your 

State. But, again, I have been showing this for years. Amos 

Switzer’s farm field, brandnew Kansas turnpike. There is where it 

ended because Oklahoma got in financial difficulty until we had 

the Federal program. That’s why we need a Federal program. 

If devolution didn’t work in the 1950s, how the hell is it going 

to work in the 21st century when we are competing worldwide with 

other countries? Back then we were the dominant power in the 

world, we didn’t need to worry about competing. So I will get Bill 

his own copy. 

Now, Mr. Lewis, on your VMT, and I—you know, you have a lot 

of satisfaction with the small number of volunteers, you had 150 

or so, and you had highest satisfaction among those who were GPS 

based. And I am going to have my staff follow up with you because 

of all the concerns I hear about privacy. I mean, when we did our 

first pilot in Oregon in Blumenauer’s district, I mean, the people 

in Blumenauer’s district are not representative of the people in my 

district, in my rural areas in particular—they are happy that the 

Government should know where I am all the time, and in my district it is like the Government will know where I was after they 

23 

have got the gun from my cold dead hand in my car. So it is—you 

know, there are some real issues there that need to be resolved. 

But my question would be, did you use congestion pricing? I 

mean, you are tracking the mileage by GPS because—here’s my 

concern: You live in eastern Oregon, you have to drive 30 miles to 

the feed store. We shouldn’t be charging that person the same per 

mile as someone who jumps onto I–205 in Portland, Oregon, which 

is backed up at rush hour, and now they are talking about, you 

know, having to toll because they are trying to drive people off of 

it. You know, so did you do variable pricing? 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. We did not in our pilot. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. Do you think that, for purposes of equity, that 

that is where we need to go? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think the system theoretically certainly allows that 

to happen, which is either a pro or a con against using a road 

usage charge. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. But, I mean, do you feel that it would be 

equitable to charge a rural Coloradan, you know, X cents per mile 

to drive on an empty road to the farm store, you know, farm supply 

store, and yet someone who jumps on, you know, the freeway right 

downtown in Denver, you know, at rush hour, they pay the same 

per mile? That doesn’t seem right. 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, I think the opportunity exists to evaluate that 

and to make different pricing, but I do think that one of the—and 

we are doing a second pilot this year specifically for the rural parts 

of Colorado to learn more about their impacts and their needs. 

And one of the things we found in the previous study was that, 

you know, many, as you know, coming from the rural part of the 

State, that many of the highway users in rural areas have, you 

know, older vehicles, larger capacity engines. If you drive an F– 

250, you are going to use a lot more gas than if you are driving 

a Prius in downtown Denver. And one of the opportunities for a 

road usage charge is that there is more equity because you are not 

paying based on the type of vehicle you need to use for your purposes; you are paying on how much you are using the roadway. So 

whether you are driving a Tesla in Boulder or an F–250 in Brush, 

you are paying for the use of the road, not what your vehicle uses 

in fuel. I think that is an opportunity. 

I think the issues you raise about equity on, you know, using on 

a congested highway versus a two-lane rural roadway, that is a 

very good comment, and I think that is something that would need 

to be studied further. Can you provide different levels of fees based 

on the type of road that is being used? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yeah, well, that is—and again, these are why we 

need—it is going to take us probably 10 years to get to something 

that would be acceptable nationwide and coordinated among the 50 

States, since it isn’t going to be a devolved 50-State program, because that wouldn’t work too well. So I appreciate that observation. 

I mean, the perversity of Oregon’s current pilot is that if you 

have one of those giant dually pickup trucks, you will save money 

by paying under the VMT as opposed to the fuel tax. I am not sure 

we want to encourage that, but I also get the thing about the older, 

less efficient vehicles in the rural areas. 

24 

And my time is just about up here. I just want to congratulate— 

you have all been great. But, Mr. Spear, thank you for your extraordinarily outspoken factual testimony on the issue and particularly bringing up the issue of I–66 and $46.75 to go 10 miles. That 

is one heck of a toll. Four dollars and 67.5 cents per mile. Not too 

many Americans can afford that. That is not the future that we desire. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Young. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 

panel. 

I am a little bit late, but everything I have heard here so far is 

good. If you had done what I wanted to do in 2005, we wouldn’t 

be here today. At that time, it was 5 cents and indexing it. People 

don’t understand we passed it in 1991—by the way, I have been 

through every highway bill since the beginning, and 1991 is 181⁄2

cents per gallon; for our trust fund, as everybody knows, is about 

7 cents now buying power. That is why we are behind the curve. 

I still believe in the user fee and the gas—I hate to say tax— 

just the user fee, but it is a gas tax. I think it is fair, so we are 

going to have carbon a long time. 

But I want to ask you, Mr. Spear, you supported the fuel tax, I 

think, most strongly for many years. What are we going to do 

about the electric trucks and all of the other things that are going 

to occur? How are we going to collect the money if they don’t use 

fuel? 

Mr. SPEAR. Well, there are a number of ways you can do it right 

now. I don’t think we would shy away from looking at alternative 

funding solutions, like using DMV registration fees, for instance. 

My testimony speaks to this. You don’t have to create a huge bureaucracy to collect and capture alternative fuel vehicles, like electrics, hydrogen, CNG. Just have them register at the DMV annually. We all do that, no administrative overhead, and that is about 

$29 billion over 10 years. 

Mr. YOUNG. But the only problem with a registration fee, and by 

the way, I set up a commission and they came back with about four 

different suggestions. I have a truck that is electric. I register it 

and you charge me. But my truck only goes 10 miles. His truck, 

the chairman’s truck, goes 5,000 miles on a highway. We are paying the same price. That is not fair. And so somewhere we have 

got to figure out equal or equity for those that travel long distances 

and those who travel short distances. But if I have my way, Mr. 

Chairman, there will be no cuts for any electric cars or anything 

else because they are using our roads. 

Mr. SPEAR. That is correct. 

Mr. YOUNG. And we are going to be in carbon use for a long time, 

regardless of what they say. Some people say 10, 20 years. I am 

saying 50 years before we finally get off of carbon-driven automobiles. We will increase electric cars. We have to collect some 

way, and I am looking for a suggestion. Is it a registration fee? I 

don’t think that is fair. Is it a mileage fee? If we can collect on the 

mileage fee, that would be fair because, otherwise, I pay for what 

I use and you pay for what you use. 

25 

Ms. Lee, I want to ask this question because the Trans-Alaskan 

Pipeline, which I am very well aware of, was built by a project 

labor agreement. Yesterday, Secretary of Transportation Elaine 

Chao urged inclusion of Davis-Bacon in infrastructure development. Would you advocate these provisions be included in any infrastructure package that comes before the committee and the 

House as a whole? 

Ms. LEE. Yes, I would. Davis-Bacon provisions? 

Mr. YOUNG. Why would you do that? 

Ms. LEE. Because maintaining community standards in terms of 

labor and wages allows, first of all, better quality projects because 

you have less turnover, you have better training, you have better 

quality of labor. And it provides durable benefits to the community 

and to workers, so that I think it is common sense that if you have 

an infrastructure project, you want that to support good wages in 

the community and not undercut wages. 

Mr. YOUNG. I thank you, because I have been an advocate for 

this because I watched the pipeline be built in 3 years, no delays, 

on time. I won’t say it was under budget, but it was darn near 

under budget. And I am a big believer in project labor agreements 

because we will get a product that will be finished probably under 

cost, and we won’t have any problems of one of the sideline groups 

having to strike and slowing the whole process down. Our biggest 

problem, it takes a long time to build a highway now, and it 

shouldn’t. You know, the permitting process, we tried that in TEA– 

LU. It improved it, didn’t finish it. We have to continue to do that 

so we are not delayed. 

And agencies are our biggest villains, because they never do anything together. I have got a bridge here, and I think most people 

know where it is, where they are building a brandnew bridge next 

to another bridge that is falling down. Now the the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service want to study the effect of the new bridge on the 

fish that swim back and forth. That is pure—never mind, I won’t 

say it. I am not going to be a Don Young now, but it is a fact of 

life. So anyway—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. It is not my initials, is it? 

Mr. YOUNG. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But anyway, I 

want to thank the panel. And, Mr. Chairman, I am a big supporter 

of paying. You cannot do this from smoke and mirrors. You have 

to have a steady flow of income so you can plan ahead of time. We 

made the mistake in 1991 because we didn’t index it. That is our 

biggest challenge. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Ms. Esty. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank the panel, and you are all spot on. We know 

what we need to do. This is not a dispute about policy. I want to 

thank all of you for saying there is an immediate need. It is about 

real funding. It is not about financing. We have plenty of debt already. We need to get back to the user fee pays and keeps up with 

those needs. And we have now got several decades of not doing 

that. And that is a hidden cost, but it is a cost and we are all paying it every day. 

26 

John Katko, who I think had to leave, and I were part of a bipartisan group, and I will get you copies of this, 48 Members of this 

House, half Democrats, half Republicans, calling for real funding 

and real changes, and we need to do that right now. 

I mean, my home State of Connecticut, our Governor has announced she is putting on hold over $3 billion worth of projects 

until we fix this funding problem. There is no free lunch, there is 

no free road, there is no free bridge. 

So here’s the question: Mr. Spear, you are totally right. We need 

the President to lean in. It is not enough to say it is all on the 

table. It has all been on the table for several decades. So the question for all of us here, but as for you as well, how are Members 

of Congress going to be held accountable for doing something, not 

talking about it, but doing? 

People were held accountable for the easy vote to lower people’s 

taxes. How are Members of Congress going to be held accountable 

by the States, by the truckers, by the national chamber, by the people who know the real cost to industry, to individuals? How are we 

going to be held accountable—carrots and sticks—so Members of 

Congress actually at this time with this President do something 

right now? Because it is an immediate need, we need to do it now. 

And every day we don’t do it is a cost to our citizens and, frankly, 

it is a cost to our democracy. If we cannot do the basics on this, 

no wonder everybody is so frustrated and so angry when we do 

know what to do. 

You know what, Syria and North Korea, we are not sure what 

to do. We know darn well what to do here, so help us figure out, 

like, how can you be part of it and what can we do? Thanks. 

Mr. SPEAR. Well, there is a lot to work with there. You know, 

look, this is a wonderful venue. I sense a lot of bipartisan spirit in 

the room about trying to address infrastructure. The policy debate, 

as I said earlier, you all know how to write highway bills. There 

is no magic needed there. I think paying for it has always been the 

impediment. We haven’t raised this since 1993. If we had indexed 

it, the Congressman is right, we probably wouldn’t be having this 

discussion right now. 

But beyond the hearing, beyond the policy debate and shaping 

legislation, you have got to vote. You have got to vote. You have 

got to put these amendments, these funding solutions on the floor 

and take votes. That is accountability. And we don’t do that enough 

anymore. We used to. Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago you had regularity, bills passed. Whether you liked it or not, the best policy 

won, you voted, and things got signed into law. 

I think the President getting in the game is critical, and I commend him. We would not be having this discussion right now if he 

hadn’t made it so. He saw something during the campaign, now 

into this year, that no one really else talked about. We are still 

riding on the tails of FAST. We got a couple years left. This is the 

time to have this discussion, but he has got to lead. He has got to 

get squarely behind a funding solution or solutions, take your pick, 

but don’t cough up the menu and say, Congress, you fix it. If that 

were the case, you would have done that 25 years ago. 

Ms. ESTY. Anyone else want to weigh in? 

27 

Mr. MORTIMER. Sure, Congresswoman, I will weigh in. Look, 

what we have been doing at the national chamber is, you know, 

Congressman Shuster talked about what Pennsylvania did. It was 

the Pennsylvania chamber that was standing there. If you go to all 

these State and local initiatives, it is State and local chambers. So 

what we are doing is we are having our State and local chambers, 

we had 37 of them write a letter to Congress saying, look, it is time 

for Federal action. 

So we are trying to mobilize our federation around the country 

and reminding lawmakers you can do it. They did it, they were successful. It is the business community working with organized labor, 

working with public transit advocates. This can be done. I don’t 

know why there is this thought in this town that you can’t do this. 

This committee has led many big bills to do it. It is just time to 

get the political courage to get it done. All we can offer as the business community, we are willing to stand with you to do it. 

Ms. LEE. And if I can just say, I think it is a powerful coalition 

when you bring labor and business together and put pressure on 

Members of Congress to do the right thing, to have the political 

courage, and to be rewarded for taking that stand. So it is time. 

Thanks. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you all very much. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Davis? 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

panel. 

Like others have mentioned, and I know this was just a point of 

discussion from Mr. Spear, I think the President’s call for an infrastructure package is an opportunity for us to look at fixing the 

Highway Trust Fund. I firmly believe, as everybody has said on 

both sides of the aisle, this has to be a priority for our Nation and 

has to be a priority for Congress. 

Obviously, we are here because it is clear the trust fund, the current funding sources, it is unsustainable. It is equally 

unsustainable to continue to rely on budget gimmicks and General 

Fund transfers to fulfill our surface transportation investment obligations. 

While I want to fix the Highway Trust Fund, I do not support 

a solution that only raises the current revenue sources. Solely raising the gas tax does not solve the long-term problem. As you look 

at more and more electric vehicles on the road as well as increased 

fuel efficiency, we have to think differently. And I know I am not 

the only Member of Congress because you have heard it here today 

that feels this way. 

I think we need to look at the Highway Trust Fund as kind of 

like a 401(k). We have got to diversify. None of you invest your 

401(k) in one stock. And frankly, when you look at the potential for 

electric vehicles to be more ubiquitous on our roadways in the upcoming years, if we don’t do something now, then we are going to 

continue to see the need for budget gimmicks and General Fund 

transfers. That is why we want to stop. That is why we are here 

today. 

I just was out in California and rode in one of Tesla’s prototype 

semi trucks. Imagine when electric technology and hybrid techVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:09 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\115\HT\3-7-20~1\3-7-20~1.TXT JEAN
28 

nology gets into the fleet level and what that is going to do to decimate the Highway Trust Fund even more. 

So you are here because we need to hear from you. Thinking in 

that 401(k) approach, a diversification, I want to ask you about, 

anybody on the panel wants to answer any of these concerns, do 

you agree that we need to be looking at other sources? And if so, 

what is your suggestion to bring in electric vehicles into the mix? 

Mr. Spear, Mr. Lewis, you guys can fight over who answers. 

Mr. SPEAR. I think Congressman DeFazio really hit on the point 

that this really isn’t ready for prime time. We have got a lot of pilots, a lot of studies, and we need to be looking at alternative funding sources. 

Mr. DAVIS. Are you talking about the VMT that Mr. DeFazio—— 

Mr. SPEAR. I am, and I think that is certainly one way that governments are looking at it. It is not ready for prime time. You are 

simply going from about 170 collectors of the fee at the wholesale 

rack, which is what we are proposing, to every vehicle on the road, 

millions. That is a huge bureaucracy to administer as it stands. 

You have got privacy issues. You have got cybersecurity issues. 

Mr. DAVIS. Rural versus urban issues. 

Mr. SPEAR. We are all for collecting. But I think, you know, the 

electric and alternative fuel vehicles currently on the roads today 

is very, very small. It is going to get big. The debate for alternative 

funding needs to start now, but it is probably going to come into 

play 10, 15 years from now. Let’s start and have that debate now. 

But for this current 10 years, we need real money on the table, 

which is why, in contrast, we are proposing using the user fee. It 

is the most efficient, immediate, and conservative way to raise 

money. It shores up the trust fund, less than 1 cent on the dollar 

to administer, and it is deficit neutral. There is not one proposal 

on the table right now that does all three of those things, except 

the user fee. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, Mr. Spear, I think you misunderstand what my 

priority is. I think Congress is only going to act now to be able to 

prepare for the future. I don’t know if you have seen this yet, Congress as a whole usually doesn’t like to act on anything without a 

deadline. And now, let’s put our own deadline in place, because 

when electric vehicles become more of a part of our roadways, it 

is going to be that much harder to be able to put them into the 

mix. We need to talk about diversification now, and that has to 

happen. 

Now the VMT, I disagree with many of my colleagues that that 

is the right approach. I am not a big fan of the VMT because I 

think it unfairly punishes rural America, where I represent, versus 

urban America. A single mom in my district that drives 30 miles 

to work is going to pay more than the single mom who drives to 

work 3 miles in the city of Chicago in Illinois. So I have got concerns with it. 

Now, I think we need to look at some other sources. There are 

other ideas out there—registration fees, battery taxes, freight 

issues—but I want everybody at the panel to begin to think about 

diversification now, because simply kicking the can down the road 

is only going to lead us back to this same table, the same debate, 

the same discussions that we are having today and, frankly, that 

29 

is why I am not in favor of solely looking at the existing sources. 

So I appreciate it. 

Mr. Lewis, I know you wanted to say something, if the chairman 

would let you, but my time is up. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Go ahead, if you would like to answer. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Davis, I think that it is pretty easy to agree on what that 

trajectory is of vehicles that will get off of using gas and onto electric or other sources. We can look at what that trajectory is. We 

can see over time what percentage of the fleet and how quickly 

that is going to take over, and I think that gets to your point, is 

as that percentage of the fleet increases, we have to find a way to 

address those uses of our roadways. And so whether it is a onetime charge as Tennessee is doing or it is a per mile fee, I think 

we can start to blend those two, and I think we need to start to 

blend those two, but I am pretty sure it is going to happen. Is it 

10 years, is it 15 years that that saturation of electric and other 

fuel vehicles take on? It is going to become more of an issue. And 

I think we need to start now thinking about how we get those into 

the program. 

But as you said, and as many have said, it is not going to happen 

tomorrow. We need the bridge to fund the Highway Trust Fund in 

a sustainable way while we transition to these other modes of 

power. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being here this morning. 

I represent a very congested urban area with every mode of 

transportation within my district. However, transit funding issues 

are of particular importance to me at this time due to my State— 

and I am from New Jersey—my State’s transit agency’s troubled finances and some of the highest fares in the country. 

Despite this administration’s neglect of the transit in the President’s infrastructure package, I would like to hear some more of 

the panel’s ideas on innovative Federal transit funding models you 

would recommend to this committee. Sir? 

Mr. SCHROER. In the State of Tennessee, the State does not operate transit, and it is operated locally. And so as one of the opportunities we had in our bill, the IMPROVE Act, we allowed large cities 

and large counties to actually do a referendum to raise taxes to 

fund transit. And as a matter of fact, as we speak, the city of Nashville is working on a referendum on May the 1st to implement their 

first large transit program. So that is an opportunity. 

And obviously, transit has been part of the funding through the 

Highway Trust Fund for a long time, and I would think that would 

be a good source and it should probably continue. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

Mr. MORTIMER. Congressman, I would just add on that, so we are 

big supporters of full funding of public transit as part of the Federal program and as the infrastructure program, so obviously the 

gas tax increase that we talked about, we support the 80 percent, 

20 percent for transit. That needs to continue, so the administration’s proposal to eliminate the CIG program we think is a bad 

idea. We need to fully fund the New Starts programs. 

30 

I think there are a lot of ways that public transit can look at innovative ways of finance. This subcommittee created a Penta-P program trying to incentivize communities to look at public-private 

partnerships as an opportunity. The Denver Eagle project was one 

that was able to utilize that program. There could be others that 

make it easier for transit to look at that. 

We also have got to figure out ways to capture the value around 

transit stations. Right now, the Federal Transit Administration 

doesn’t fully capture that value and how we provide that value into 

helping defray the costs of those projects. Those are some of the 

ideas that we have. 

Mr. PAYNE. OK. Mr. Spear? 

Mr. SPEAR. I was going to say buses do benefit from the Highway 

Trust Fund, so shoring up the trust fund is a critical element to 

the solution that we would recommend. Our proposal certainly focuses on that, and that is a benefactor. I think making certain that 

the trust fund is whole is really critical, but also that the moneys 

that go into the trust fund are put back into the designated places. 

Diversion of funding is really an element that we need to avoid 

that we are actually raising money, putting money back in. And 

tolling schemes don’t generally do that. Diversion of funding and 

diversion of traffic, quite frankly, causes a heck of a lot of problems. You are moving people off those roads onto side roads. You 

are creating more congestion, more problems for those side roads, 

more congestion and safety issues in communities. These are all 

very impactful. 

So making certain that the trust fund moneys go back into the 

modes that they are intended to is really critical. 

Mr. PAYNE. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. I would also add that, you know, we were talking 

about the transportation system. All these modes need to interconnect, and they all have value. Transit is very important in many 

of the rural areas of Colorado as well. It is not just the urban 

areas. So I think we need to recognize that we have a users of a 

transportation system, and there are different modes that make 

sense in different locations. 

Mr. PAYNE. OK. 

Ma’am? OK. 

Well, thank you for the answers that you have given. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Faso. 

Mr. FASO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the panel for your testimony today. It feels like 

we are all preaching to the same choir; the question is whether 

anyone is hearing it. 

Mr. Spear, your Build America Fund recommended a 20-cent per 

gallon fee phased in over a 5-year period—a 4-year period collected 

at the terminal rack. Could you further explain how you envision 

that proposal and what its advantages would be over a pure gas 

tax increase? 

Mr. SPEAR. Certainly. Yes, it does move it a couple steps up from 

where it is currently done at the pump. This came from an idea 

from Kenan Advantage, one of our members. They are the largest 

31 

mover of fuel in North America. And the rack basically consists of 

three things. The wholesale rack is ports, terminals, or pipelines. 

That is where tank trucks go to get their fuel before they go to the 

filling station to where we fuel up. It is already taxed at the rack. 

There is only 170 owners of the rack. It is the most narrow 

chokepoint in the supply chain, and they are already paying it. So 

putting it there basically bakes the fee into the price of fuel. 

Mr. FASO. So are these all fossil fuels? 

Mr. SPEAR. Yes. 

Mr. FASO. So we would be talking about natural gas as well? 

Mr. SPEAR. Yes. 

Mr. FASO. And propane? 

Mr. SPEAR. Yes. 

Mr. FASO. And obviously, if that were the case, that would get 

at one of the core issues that folks are raising here about electric 

vehicles, the electricity has to come from somewhere. I know a lot 

of people think electricity comes from the switch on the wall, but 

ultimately—yes, Mr. Lewis, it doesn’t. But ultimately, those electric 

vehicles are powered by a central fuel source. 

Now, maybe battery technology and distributed generation in the 

future, that would be a different equation, but you are suggesting 

something that would, in essence, be a centralized collection point, 

170 places? I am hard-pressed to think that is—— 

Mr. SPEAR. 170 owners. 

Mr. FASO. Owners. And so how would this also affect electric 

generation, natural gas, et cetera? 

Mr. SPEAR. Well, it is something more broadly that we would 

need to look at. As I said earlier, you are not seeing a widespread 

use of alternative-fueled vehicles yet. You will in, certainly, 10, 15 

years. We are looking at it through the lens of the next 10 years, 

and we believe this is the best proposal to raise immediate money, 

but we would look at alternative funding solutions for capturing alternative use vehicles as well, certainly. 

Mr. FASO. Do any of the other members of the panel have a 

thought about this particular proposal that has been raised by Mr. 

Spear and his association? 

Mr. Mortimer? 

Mr. MORTIMER. Sure. I think it is something worth exploring. We 

haven’t dived into it as much as ATA did. But again, I think our 

view is as long as it is transparent to the taxpayer, we know where 

the revenues are being collected, we know where they are going. I 

think the business community is willing to be supportive of 

those—— 

Mr. FASO. So how would it actually be transparent to the taxpayer, since the cost of this will be built into the price of the fuel 

or the electric product, correct? 

Mr. SPEAR. I think the assurance that you all want to make for 

people paying into this is that the money is actually going to go 

back into roads and bridges. That is the guarantee they are looking 

for here. We are more than welcome and happy to pay for an increase in the user fee, so long as it goes back into roads and 

bridges. 

The nice thing about the rack is that it bakes it into the price 

of fuel. Most people that fuel up at the pump aren’t even going to 

32 

notice 5 cents. It goes up and down that much, as we said earlier, 

you know, just on our commute in. So, you know, that is the best 

place we believe to bake it into the price of fuel and get $340 billion 

of new revenue over the next 10 years. 

Mr. FASO. Any other members of the panel want to weigh in on 

this point? 

Mr. LEWIS. I just have an anecdotal comment. We did some focus 

group work in Colorado recently, and a surprisingly large number 

of the folks that we interviewed didn’t even know there was a gas 

tax. 

Mr. FASO. Interesting. 

Mr. Schroer? 

Mr. SCHROER. As a department, we are not really that concerned 

about actually where it is collected. I do think that, you know, the 

closest it gets to the wholesale place, the more apt you are to have 

a better efficiency in the collection, and that is important. 

I will have to say that we have to look at the other alternative 

sources as a point of revenue. We did that in Tennessee in our bill. 

We looked at other—we taxed electric vehicles and other forms of 

energy as part of that bill, and I think that is something that we 

have to look at as we go forward. 

Mr. FASO. Mr. Chairman, thank you. My time is up. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Larsen. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank the 

subcommittee for letting me sit in as well today. I will return the 

favor if anyone wants to sit on the Aviation Subcommittee. 

VOICE. It was close to an objection. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Spear, back to the wholesale versus retail. I 

had a question that was asked already, so I appreciate how that 

would be structured, but how do you—if you charge at the rack, 

how do you ensure that that unit of propane is going to be used 

for a vehicle as opposed to being used for nonvehicle use? 

Mr. SPEAR. Oh, I think that is where you would look to legislation for that and how the Highway Trust Fund is currently administered to ensure that there is no diversion between the relationship of Federal and State administration of the trust fund, that 

those funds actually go to their intended purpose and not diverted. 

Mr. LARSEN. Well, I understand the intended purpose would be 

for transportation, and I fully support that, but I am saying, not 

all propane, I guess, that would be delivered would necessarily be 

used for a transportation purpose; it would be a legitimate purpose, 

but not transportation. 

Mr. SPEAR. That is true. More broadly, transportation logistics, 

perhaps. We look at the rack as the solution for diesel and petrol 

for roads and bridges, and that is the lion’s share of the $340 billion over 10 years that we are talking about. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, OK. With regards to electric, since we pay retail, pay at the pump for gas and gas tax, has anyone looked at the 

possibility of developing the same kind of notion for electric? That 

is, when I plug in my electric vehicle, every electron that goes in, 

there is a little tariff on it that ends up transferred to the Highway 

Trust Fund? 

Mr. LEWIS. California, I believe, is currently undertaking a pilot 

that does exactly that. 

33 

Mr. LARSEN. Can you not use California as an example? 

Mr. LEWIS. I do apologize for that, but it came to my mind. But 

they are doing that to study the collection of a fee at the charging 

stations for the miles used for that vehicle. 

Mr. LARSEN. OK. So kind of like the gas tax at the pump. So it 

is collected then, then transferred to the trust fund. 

And then back to the bigger question about the gas tax and the 

elasticity of it. We keep going back to it and, speaking of kicking 

the can down the road, we ought to charge people for saying that 

and that would fund the Highway Trust Fund. I bring that up because the Transportation Revenue Commission from 2005 or 2007, 

recommended moving towards a vehicle miles traveled, and that is 

either 10 or 12 years since that came out, and we are still piloting 

RUCs throughout the States. We are not moving quickly on this 

and not moving quickly enough to determine if it is a viable, legitimate supplement or complement to the Highway Trust Fund. 

I am a little more with Mr. Spear and Mr. Mortimer on are we 

ever going to get to it. You know, it is another 10 to 12 years down 

the road maybe, but not at the rate we are going. Is there a way 

to get to a decision faster on the use of RUCs? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. I think if there is more success and that you 

have got the 14 Western States—— 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, Washington is one of them. 

Mr. LEWIS. Then Washington is one of them, it is combining— 

we are learning from those experiences. We are learning from the 

good and the bad of how these are unfolding. You know, if we think 

that that is 10 years away, if we look back 25 years, the last time 

the fuel tax was increased, maybe 10 years isn’t so long, you know. 

So I think—and there is probably a role that USDOT can play in 

they are already playing in helping us fund some of these pilot programs. There are probably some interoperability studies that can 

be done. You know, there is an I–95 work and there is a Western 

States work. How do we tie the two together? 

So I think there is more that can be done if we look into the future and look at those curves and how quickly is the fuel efficiency 

going to go up and how quickly are the electric vehicles going to 

get into the system. On that curve, we can plan out a transition 

time, I think, but we need to take action. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. OK. 

And, Ms. Lee, do we have a workforce that can—do we have the 

numbers in the workforce to do this? 

Ms. LEE. Yes, we absolutely do. You know, first of all, there are 

a lot of trained workers who are out of work or have dropped out 

of the labor force, but I think, you know, the labor market continues to be weak, even 9 years after the economic recovery. And 

so I think this is exactly the kind of boost that we need in terms 

of labor market participation and creating good jobs that would be 

spread all over the country. So it is a huge advantage, and also we 

can pair it and we should pair it with training, you know, with 

good training and apprenticeship programs that make sure that 

they are incorporating underserved populations and others that 

haven’t been part of that. 

34 

So I think this can be a tool for equity in the labor market, and 

it would be an excellent one that is both good macroeconomically 

and also good for local labor markets. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you. And I just would note finally, Mr. 

Mortimer’s testimony, your rewritten testimony, that getting rid of 

workers, moving them out of the U.S. workforce by not extending 

DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] or doing what we 

are doing with the TPS [Temporary Protected Status] folks, you are 

moving workers out of the U.S. labor force is not a good idea. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Perry? 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, ladies and 

gentlemen for being here. We are all concerned about the vitality 

of the Highway Trust Fund and maintaining that. With that, I am 

concerned because the gas tax, of course, being bantered about as 

one of the most regressive taxes especially for low-income individuals who spend more of a proportion on their income on gasoline 

than other folks and, of course, it follows the supply chain as every 

retailer and everybody in business as the additional cost of the gasoline and transportation into their product and everybody pays that 

as well. And having just passed the American Tax Cuts and Jobs 

Act, I am a little remiss that we would immediately think about 

taking that away through an increased gas tax without something 

to offset it on the other side. And we all know we need a revenue 

source, but I am not sure that that wholly gets to the issue. And 

I think you would acknowledge that there are other vehicles that 

are on the highways that aren’t paying through the gas tax, and 

even just increasing it fails to capture the revenue from those that 

are using it, even though it is, I would agree, a user fee. 

Mr. Mortimer, in particular, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has 

endorsed a 25-cent increase of the Federal gas tax, which is the 

largest increase in the history of the tax. Do you know how much 

it will cost the average consumer, the household, annually, additionally? 

Mr. MORTIMER. Sure, Congressman, thanks for the question. Yes. 

So it is 25 cents, it would be 5 years over a 5-year period. 

Mr. PERRY. Right. 

Mr. MORTIMER. And under our estimates, it is $9 a month. So we 

are talking about $104 a year. And Mr. Spear talked about the 

$1,500 that Americans of all economic levels are losing because of 

inadequate road conditions and sitting in congestion. So we just did 

the math and said, look, this is something that, while it may be 

regressive in one sense of collection, the benefits outweigh the regressive nature of collecting the fee. Infrastructure is an asset that 

we all benefit over many years, so the regression upfront is more 

than paid for when the reality is we get modern infrastructure and 

people’s mobility improves. 

Mr. PERRY. And certainly, coming from Pennsylvania, we have 

got a lot of old infrastructure, a lot of roads, and I am on this committee because I want to be, and I believe it is constitutional that 

the Federal Government is involved. But I struggle with this, and 

my figures are a little different. I come up with $285 a year per 

household additional on gas, which maybe it is not to some people 

35 

certainly in this town, but it is a lot to a lot of people in the district 

that I represent and hope to continue to represent. 

Let me just ask you this. You know, I think that most people acknowledge that they benefit from a robust infrastructure regardless 

of how much they use it and they are willing to pay for it, but they 

want it be as efficient as it can be. And I would say, even with the 

increases, if we can show something on the other side of the ledger 

which would be much more palatable to people if you said to them, 

look, we are going to take more of your pay at the pump or at the— 

you know, if it is electric vehicles or what have you, but we are also 

going to reduce the cost or increase our efficiency. 

There are a couple laws in particular that I am interested in the 

national chamber’s position on. Of course, the prevailing wage law 

hasn’t been changed since 1935. The threshold is $2,000 since 

1935, and my estimates, that the average wage is 22 percent higher than the actual market rate. So it is not really prevailing if that 

is the case, and people can dispute that, but I think it is hard to, 

at least at some point, not acknowledge that it is higher than the 

market rate and that labor costs are about 50 percent of construction costs. And with that, the requirement tends to inflate the costs 

by anywhere from 7 percent, I think legitimately, to about almost 

10 percent. 

That one and project labor agreements where the agreement is 

we will complete the job on time and not strike and, you know, for 

the cost that we estimated, and to me that is a simple contractual 

agreement. I agree to pay you this, you agree to do this work. I 

don’t expect you to not get it done on time and I don’t expect you 

with—you know, without unforeseen eventualities to run over 

costs. 

Where does the United States Chamber of Commerce stand on 

those two issues, understanding that we do recognize the need to 

fund the Highway Trust Fund with some measure, but there is another side of the ledger that needs to be dealt with and modernized 

as well? 

Mr. MORTIMER. Right. Good questions. Look, I mean, I think— 

so I spent 10 years with an engineering firm, so I am very familiar 

with how Davis-Bacon works. The bottom line is most engineering 

firms will tell you around the country if you are not paying the prevailing wage, you are probably not going to get the type of workforce to do the work that you need to get done. So whether the Congress decides to change the law or not, engineering firms are probably going to be paying that cost. That is my experience in my 10 

years there. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we are in a coalition with organized labor, and we made an agreement that on infrastructure 

issues, we were not going to talk about any changes to the DavisBacon law or to project labor agreements, on infrastructure. Other 

parts of the economy we can have that discussion, but we thought 

it was more important to bring organized labor together to try to 

get a broad constituent of folks push this infrastructure issue, and 

so we had to make the decision that, for the immediate time being, 

in an infrastructure world, that we don’t see the need and we don’t 

see the interest in Congress right now to have an adjustment in 

Davis-Bacon. If that discussion happens, maybe the national chamVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:09 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\115\HT\3-7-20~1\3-7-20~1.TXT JEAN
36 

ber will relook at that, but that discussion is not going on in the 

debate, and we feel we have a great relationship with organized 

labor, and part of that is because we agreed not to talk about and 

not get involved in those issues. 

Mr. PERRY. Appreciate your response. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Lowenthal. 

Dr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Norton, for holding this important conversation. I want to applaud members on both sides of the aisle who have demonstrated 

our bipartisan commitment on this committee to trying to fix the 

Highway Trust Fund and to discuss some of the issues around that 

and put our country on a sustainable path towards infrastructure 

investment. 

My first question is for Mr. Schroer. I want to thank you for your 

testimony. I was in another committee hearing earlier, but I read 

the written testimony and for AASHTO’s continued work to highlight our needs for infrastructure investment across the country. I 

appreciate that AASHTO continues to include a freight bill user fee 

in its matrix of revenue options highlighted in exhibit 2 of your 

written testimony. 

As you may know, I have also introduced a bipartisan legislation 

that would implement this sustainable freight user fee to finance 

a freight trust fund. The DOT estimates that my plan would send 

over $100 million a year just in formula funding to freight priorities in Tennessee. What do you think you and your colleagues 

across the country could do with these kinds of resources to improve goods movement? 

Mr. SCHROER. Well, in Tennessee, no question. As I mentioned 

earlier, we have nine interstates that travel throughout our State 

and heavy truck traffic, and we are concerned about being able to 

fund those and add capacity on those roads for the increased 

freight movement. And it does—we worry about safety of passenger 

vehicles and an increased movement of those and throughout our 

State. So money that can be used for freight movement is critical. 

We actually have hired several people in our department to only 

look at freight movement and projects that we can do that will enhance the movement of freight throughout our State. So it is a critical piece for Tennessee and across this country. 

Dr. LOWENTHAL. Talking about a dedicated freight revenue 

stream user fee, Mr. Lewis, what about in Colorado, could you use 

the money? 

Mr. LEWIS. Oh, absolutely, Congressman. I think, you know, we 

established something called a Freight Advisory Committee about 

18 months ago that brought in our partners in the trucking industry, shipping companies, the rail industry, to talk about what are 

those priorities. I mean, just think of the geography of Colorado. 

The Continental Divide that separates the Front Range from the 

western slope, the whole western two-thirds of the State, all fuel, 

motor fuel, heating oil, aviation fuel to get to the western slope has 

to cross over the Continental Divide at a pass at 12,000 feet. Has 

to go, rain or snow, and that is the path that we access the whole 

western part of the State. 

37 

We are just not able to grow the economy unless we are able to 

do something about that weak link in the transportation system, 

and that is true throughout the State. So dedicated freight revenues are critically important to the economic growth of the State. 

Dr. LOWENTHAL. Mr. Spear, I appreciate your comments in your 

written testimony about a freight weigh bill fee and the creation 

of a multimodal freight program. You know, I understand the concerns of the trucking industry about the collection of this fee, the 

potential for evasion or diversion, and the use of revenues collected 

by the trucking industry for other transportation modes. I understand those kinds of concerns. I personally believe we can overcome 

these issues by working with you and the ATA and other stakeholders that actually support this proposal to craft a final proposal 

that addresses these concerns that you have raised. Would you be 

willing to work with us on that? 

Mr. SPEAR. It is a much better alternative than litigation. So yes. 

Dr. LOWENTHAL. Also, it is sustainable, what we are talking 

about, and doesn’t have the issues of the highway transit fund, 

which is not a sustainable funding trust fund. 

Mr. SPEAR. Well, it could be. It could be. That is up to you. We 

are here to help you. We are certainly united in helping you get 

that done. But I do feel that the provisions that you put into the 

FAST Act, on having freight plans, more oversight, not to the 

States, but of the DOT, reviewing those freight plans. As I said in 

my testimony, my opening statement, we lose, as an industry, 

$63.4 billion a year sitting in congestion. For passenger vehicles, 

that exceeds $100 billion. These are measurable numbers. 

Dr. LOWENTHAL. Right. 

Mr. SPEAR. And so having good freight flow, good freight plans 

are the starting point. You saw that in the FAST Act. Now we need 

to really keep the feet to the fire and make certain these plans are 

implemented and funded. 

Dr. LOWENTHAL. And I agree with you. I concur with you. And 

as I yield back, I think we should follow the money again here too. 

We have to have a sustainable funding stream. 

And so, with that, I yield back. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. Smucker. 

Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank 

the chairman for scheduling this hearing on this very, very important topic, and it should be an important priority for us. 

I was part of the legislature in Pennsylvania when we recently 

passed the wholesale gas tax. Mr. Spear, just a quick question first. 

You talk about the fee at the terminal rack. Is that similar to the 

wholesale gas tax? 

Mr. SPEAR. Very much, yes. 

Mr. SMUCKER. And then, Mr. Spear, I would like to—you used 

the term ‘‘gotta vote,’’ and I sense the frustration in your voice. It 

has been a long time since we have addressed this. I would like to 

just explore that a little and talk about what happened in Pennsylvania. But if we had to vote today, what do you think the vote 

count would be? 

Mr. SPEAR. I would say, right now, we would probably have some 

work to do. But that is where, you know, having hearings like this, 

having this kind of dialogue, having the bipartisanship, having this 

38 

panel, which is very diverse, by the way. There are not a lot of 

issues that we all agree on. This is one of them. 

Mr. SMUCKER. Right. 

Mr. SPEAR. And so in terms of policy and bills, you guys know 

how to write a highway bill. It is getting the votes for the funding, 

and we are prepared to really work that hard. 

Mr. SMUCKER. Well, I appreciate that. And I agree with your sentiment. This is something that needs to be done, but we also need 

to have the support to get it done. 

Mr. SPEAR. Correct. 

Mr. SMUCKER. And so I guess what I am asking you is this: One 

of the really important components—there are, I guess, two things 

that I could mention that were really, really important in Pennsylvania. And it was passed in Pennsylvania, not unlike a lot of other 

States now, that we have all talked about a lot of States that have 

done the same thing. And by the way, in Pennsylvania, it was Republican control, Republican Governor, Republican both Houses. 

And it was a time when we were trying to drive more fiscal responsibility, cutting areas of Government. We had folks who said they 

absolutely wouldn’t vote to raise taxes, but were able to—you 

know, people came to understand that this really is a user fee on 

a very important core function of Government. You can maybe cut 

in other areas, but this is a core function of Government that affects our economy, affects the consumers. And you have already 

talked about some of that. 

But what was very critical was the leadership at the top, and we 

happen to have a secretary who was absolutely outstanding in driving the discussion. And I think we have that in the President 

today, a President who really is focused on infrastructure. And 

then it was building the public support. And this is where I would 

like to—you know, at the end of the day, we are legislators, we are 

here to represent the views of our constituents. And we have a lot 

of constituents—I am from a conservative district. I have a lot of 

folks who don’t want to raise taxes. They don’t want more dollars 

going to the Government. They want dollars in their own pocket. 

And so that is a very important sentiment that we have to recognize. 

So my question to you is, who is reminding the people of the cost 

of having infrastructure that is not working? Cost in congestion, 

cost in—you know, if your car hits a pothole, that is going to cost 

you $100 just to fix that, and the cost in—you see it in the trucking 

industry, the cost added to every single product because of additional freight costs. If your trucks are sitting, I don’t know how 

many—the number you said, but are sitting in congestion, 360,000 

drivers or something like that. I mean, that adds to the cost. 

But what we saw in Pennsylvania was, you know, proponents, all 

the stakeholders really had sort of a strong engagement in reminding the public of the need and of the cost if we didn’t do anything. 

I am not seeing that yet here. So I would like to ask you what you 

are doing now, and maybe for Mr. Mortimer as well. What are you 

doing now? What do you intend to do to help build the public support for this and to gain the support here within the legislature? 

Mr. SPEAR. Well, I think for starters, I said at the outset, the 

President’s ability to amplify this issue is absolutely essential. He 

39 

has done that, and I think we are seeing the benefit. Having this 

debate, we are having it because he made it a priority, a front 

burner issue. 

He does need to go further. We need to really down-select what 

the funding solutions are going to look like, but we also need to 

shape the narrative. We have a coalition. It exists. We have been 

very aggressive, not only working Capitol Hill and with States and 

other stakeholders, to really capture the narrative. 

And how we explain this really does need to center on the cost 

of doing nothing. People out there are paying $1,500 a year, $1,000 

spent wasted in fuel sitting in traffic, the other $500 spent on repairing their vehicles. That number comes down exponentially. And 

we are only talking about them paying in about $110 more a year 

in fuel prices, OK. So they get better roads and bridges everywhere 

in the United States. That $1,500, there is your offset. Our industry, $63 billion sitting in traffic. That number comes down. 

So these are very measurable, they are real, real dollars, and I 

think we have a solution that really can tell that narrative to people and it will resonate. If they know the money is going back into 

roads and bridges, they are willing to pay for it. We have seen polling that has evidenced that. 

So we obviously have work to do. We need to shape this landscape up here, need to help you get the votes. We are ready to do 

that. We think the votes are there. 

Mr. SMUCKER. I know I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. Just one 

quick followup to that. I agree, and I think we have homework to 

do. This is something we need to continue to push. But I think the 

role that you all can play in this is absolutely critical. You have described it very well. And from my perspective and from what we 

saw in Pennsylvania, I think we can’t do it without that kind of 

engagement from all of you and other stakeholders in the process. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mrs. Napolitano. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to 

the panel for all your testimony. 

And we all agree, and you apparently agree with us. We need 

more money for transportation infrastructure. 

Mr. Spear and Mr. Mortimer, the businesses you represent depend on reliable, congestion-free roadways and infrastructure to 

spur economic productivity. My State of California recently passed 

a major, major bipartisan transportation bill with two-thirds vote 

of our legislature, known as SB–1, and provides $54 billion in infrastructure investment over the next decade. SB–1 is paid for with 

a 12-percent gas tax increase and increased fees on energy-efficient 

cars, since they are not currently paying their fair share of use of 

the highway. 

Do you support the California infrastructure package, SB–1? Because there is an effort to repeal the package. And will you be opposed to such an effort? 

Mr. SPEAR. Taking a State-by-State approach is very, very difficult for an industry like ours that is interstate commerce. The 

platform that we would propose is very much a Federal one, because we move State to State. We are in and out of California all 

the time. 

40 

California does have the luxury of raising the kind of revenue 

needed. Whether we agree with it or not is irrelevant, actually, but 

you do have that ability. Most States don’t. In fact, over half the 

States in the United States do not have the ability to raise that 

kind of cash, certainly not the ability to administer it. 

There is a Federal role. We don’t believe in devolution. We think 

there is a constitutional responsibility of this body, this legislative 

branch, to fulfill when it comes to interstate commerce. So we 

would look at working with State to State by having a strong federally funded program and administrative capability to ensure that 

all States have the ability to do it, not just California. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Mortimer. 

Mr. MORTIMER. Yes, Congresswoman. So the U.S. Chamber of 

Commerce, again, like Chris, we are very focused on the Federal 

and the interstate connection there and the interstate commerce. 

That being said, I believe that the California chamber and others 

have been very opposed to any effort to repeal that, because my understanding is the California business community was the one that 

helped enact that. So I will let them speak for themselves. 

But, again, from our perspective, we are trying to get into a situation where we need to modernize our infrastructure. It is going to 

take all the stakeholders, both Federal, State and local, to bring 

more resources to the table. And so we need to have that discussion 

and we need to really think through these things. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. We addressed that. California took care of 

that. 

Mr. Schroer and Mr. Lewis, the Trump administration’s plan 

calls for more State investment, but prohibits State governments 

from setting local hire preferences on infrastructure projects. Most 

taxpayers believe that when they are paying for a public transportation project, they should be given a preference on jobs associated 

with the project. 

As representatives of Tennessee and Colorado DOTs, do you believe you and other State DOTs should be allowed to set local hire 

preferences for your citizens that are paying for the vast majority 

of the State projects? 

Mr. SCHROER. Do you want to take that one? I will be glad to 

answer it. Go ahead. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Congresswoman. I think that there is a 

balance. We have a major project in Colorado right now on Interstate 70. It is a $1.2 billion renovation of Interstate 70 between 

Denver International Airport and downtown. We were able to work 

with the USDOT and the Federal Highway Administration on a 

pilot program that allowed a percentage of local hire. 

It was very important to the community that—we were a disadvantaged community that this project is going through—that we 

have a training program and a hire program within that affected 

community. And it was very effective in getting support from the 

community on moving the project forward. 

But I do think that there—so I support that. I think we need to 

be careful not to become islands, because it is the United States of 

America. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Right. 

41 

Mr. SCHROER. In Tennessee, we have not pursued that option. I 

will say that we have a lot of work going on. We actually have almost full employment in the State of Tennessee, which makes a big 

difference, and also then makes it sometimes difficult to man the 

projects that we are doing. We do entertain quotes from outside of 

the State contractors, and they bid as they would normally. And we 

are a low-bid State, so we look at that. 

But I think it is important to know that the cost to bring in people from other States to do work is part of the process, and our 

local contractors and workforce actually have a competitive price 

advantage because they are just that local. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, Mr. Chair, I have run out of time, but 

I had another question. May I go on? 

This is for Mr. Schroer and Ms. Lee. In addition to California 

passing the $54 billion infrastructure package, the county of L.A. 

has recently passed two transportation measures—this is the county—to provide $120 billion in infrastructure over the next 40 years. 

The voters approved it by 70 percent. The most recent infrastructure sales tax implemented was last year. 

I am concerned that the administration’s infrastructure plan significantly penalizes State and local governments that raised revenues prior to 2018. Not only do States and locals that recently 

passed this infrastructure package score poorly when rated by the 

plan, the administration limits the projects to qualify for only 5 

percent or $5 billion out of the $800 billion for new incentive 

projects. 

Well, we share the concern, and I am sure you would too, that 

the States have done the right thing, and yet they are being penalized and should be rewarded instead. 

Ms. LEE. Yes. It seems like it is counterproductive to penalize the 

States that have been able to find the funding and be able to move 

forward and actually make those investments in infrastructure. So 

it seems like this is one of those situations where there is no need 

for the Federal Government to weigh in against those States that 

have been able to find that funding. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHROER. So Tennessee is one of those States that have 

passed new revenue. We did it last year. There are 31 States that 

have done that. AASHTO for sure believes that we have to be given 

credit for that. I know the President’s package supposedly has a 

clawback provision where credit is given for States that have 

passed laws to increase revenue for the last several-year period. 

We haven’t yet seen the formula. We hope that that is part of the 

President’s package, if that were to pass, so that we get credit for 

what we have done. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mr. LaMalfa. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Being a fellow Californian too, I hate to have to speak against 

my dear colleague there, a very gracious lady, but on this gas tax 

that was foisted upon California taxpayers, road users, indeed, it 

really wasn’t bipartisan when only one State senator and zero 

members of the assembly Republicans voted for the measure, and 

42 

that we know already 30 percent off the top of it is going to go for 

things besides the highways. None of it will add any extra capacity 

or any extra lanes. 

So, as the national chamber fellow pointed out, the folks that 

were from business that were in favor of it were those that are getting the project work and labor as well. That is why the voters are 

going to have a chance, hopefully, to speak on it and have a chance 

to speak on these increased taxes as well, because, you know, if we 

are talking—if that has already happened at the State level and 

now the Federal level wants to double-whammy them with additional gas tax, this affects real people out there. You know, if it is 

going to be $300 to $500 per household and then another round at 

the Federal level, real people pay for this. 

So what never gets talked about much around here is how do we 

decrease the cost of building a mile of highway or repairing a 

bridge; you know, even our President is talking about that. Why 

does it take so many years to study, permit, and all that? So that 

is where the frustration lies. And when people—you know, when 

people pay at the pump, they believe those dollars are going to 

their highways, yet we know the highway transit fund is being 

used for much urban transit, for trains, for buses, things that don’t 

pay back into it. 

So since the trust fund is paying out into several different types 

of things that are nongas transportation and many people use 

these methods, what are ways—and I will throw this to Mr. 

Schroer or Mr. Lewis—we can actually increase the share that 

these other users—you know, we talked about electric cars a little 

bit, OK. Well, California’s new law doesn’t even kick in until I 

think 2020, and it is only $100 per electric car to pay into that system. So they are really not paying any kind of fair share. It seems 

to be the focus, to me. 

But I would like to hear from you, is a much heavier load by the 

electric cars that are going to be coming more and more into play, 

it seems, especially with the legislature trying to ban fossil fuel vehicles by 2040 in California, or we should quit directing money to 

those that are not paying it in the mass transit. They should be 

finding other ways to tax that in order to pay their fair share, instead of a so-called highway fund not going for highway dollars. 

Please, Mr. Schroer or Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. SCHROER. Well, I agree that we should look at—we think 

that everybody who uses the roads ought to pay for their fair share. 

And I think the State of Tennessee has done that in their bill. I 

do think the issue of vehicle miles traveled is one of those issues 

that we are going to have to look at as more and more cars become 

electric or other sources of fuel. It is a progression, as we have 

talked about today. 

I will say on the transit side, I understand there are lots of concerns with regard to transit, but I also will tell you that if you use 

transit, you take cars off the highway. And when you take cars off 

the highway, there is less wear and tear on those roads. And there 

is an inconvenience to riding transit, much different than having 

a personal automobile. So there is a personal inconvenience that 

people use—— 

43 

Mr. LAMALFA. Well, that completely ignores the rural part of the 

country here where there is no transit between Richvale, California, and Montague, California. 

Mr. SCHROER. So in Tennessee, Congressman, we fund transit in 

all 95 counties. And so it is an integral part of our rural areas to 

get people to the doctors and hospitals that don’t have opportunity 

to transit. So we use that money. Almost all that money is Federal 

dollars, comes from FTA, and we put it to good use, and people in 

our rural counties use it a lot. 

Mr. LEWIS. Congressman, I would support everything my colleague has said. I think, you know, Colorado is sort of a microcosm 

of the rest of the country, very dense urban areas, lots of congestion, but vast parts of the State are open. And our State transit 

system is critical to servicing those rural parts of the State, making 

a connection to the Denver metro area for hospital and other services. So it is an integrated system, one that is growing in Colorado. 

And as Mr. Schroer said—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Let me touch on Colorado a little bit. How have 

you handled the out-of-State drivers and the drivers that are using 

off-road, private roads, farming, you know, timber areas? How has 

Colorado handled that with its VMT pilot? You know, again, outof-State people aren’t going to—how do you deal with that? 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, again, this was a very small pilot program that 

we did over the course of the last year. And we gave users an option to whether to use a GPS way of measuring their mileage or 

just strictly by the odometer. With an odometer reading, you don’t 

know where you are driving. You don’t know what kind of road you 

are on. 

Mr. LAMALFA. For out-of-staters, though? 

Mr. LEWIS. There were no out-of-staters in the system, but if you 

were driving out of the State—and no money was collected, this 

was just a pilot. So if a vehicle was driving in Kansas with just an 

odometer reading, you would be paying for the mileage you used 

in Kansas; whereas, with a GPS, it would know you are at the border and you would not be charged for that use of the Kansas roadways. You would only be charged for the use of the Colorado roadways. 

Mr. LAMALFA. So you have a bureaucratic nightmare for the offroaders or people traveling out of State or you have a privacy concern—I think Mr. Spear made a mention—on GPS following you 

around where you are going, right? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think the concern about privacy, that is something 

that has been a longstanding concern. It was a concern in Oregon 

when this was first proposed and implemented. The people that 

used in the pilot—and we specifically went to folks that were not 

in favor of a usage tax, a road usage charge. They found it very 

convenient and that their privacy concerns were largely overcome. 

I think all of us—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Really? 

Mr. LEWIS. It was. They were. 

Mr. LAMALFA. How did you do that, beat them over the head or 

what? 

Mr. LEWIS. No. I think they felt confident that their personal 

data was protected and that they were not—— 

44 

Mr. LAMALFA. By this Government? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. 

Mr. LAMALFA. The people who can’t keep your health records? I 

mean, that is funny. I am sorry. But it is an intrusion on that. And 

for the off-roaders, I just see that, you know, the easiest thing you 

do is pay at the pump, right? There are a couple different methods 

you are talking about paying. 

All right. I am over time here, but I haven’t gotten any closer to 

being a VMT advocate than I have—thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 

will yield back. Sorry. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. Mrs. Lawrence. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you. 

I must say this conversation is much, much needed. I can tell 

you my frustration is that we keep talking about it. It is amazing 

how we have consensus that we need to create policy and we need 

to find the funding, but we keep going in a circle. 

To that end, Mr. Lewis, can you briefly describe the mileagebased fee system and discuss what challenges await in trying to 

implement such an alternative to gas tax? And if you could, while 

you are talking about that, discuss whether the gas tax should be 

eliminated if the mileage-based fee system is implemented. 

Mr. LEWIS. Right. Thank you, Congresswoman. There are still a 

number of challenges. I think we have all testified today and many 

of the questions of the committee have centered around the existing system that we have today, which is collecting a user fee 

through the form of a gas tax. There is a very robust, more than 

a century-old system of collecting that user fee. 

I think the challenge that we are facing is that in the not too distant future, and we can have debates about how far away that future is, the more that electric vehicles and other fuel vehicles are 

making up the fleet, we will not be collecting those user fees 

through the existing gas tax. It isn’t going to happen tomorrow, but 

it will happen. 

And I think what we have to do is work on a transition plan that 

as the fuel tax becomes less viable, that we already have in place 

a system to replace it. And it isn’t going to be, you know, midnight 

on a particular year on December 31 that we switch from one to 

the other. I don’t see that as being the way. I think there will be 

a transition, over the course of a number of years, in order to move 

off of the existing fuel. It doesn’t change the need we have today, 

and the need we have today is very real and the existing system 

of revenue is what we have. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. I thank you for that, because I think we keep 

getting caught in what we can’t do, what is not happening, what 

is not working, to actually start moving the needle down the road. 

Because cars that don’t use fuel is a reality. I am from Detroit. It 

is coming. So I am very intrigued by that. 

Mr. Spear, your testimony makes some strong arguments regarding the negative impacts of tolling. You cite that expansion of tolling is far more regressive than raising the existing user fee. Can 

you elaborate on the equity and the impacts of tolling? 

Mr. SPEAR. Absolutely. And I appreciate the question. There is 

a lot of talk about public-private partnerships. When we speak 

about roads and bridges, that is really code for tolling. 

45 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Yes, it is. 

Mr. SPEAR. Tolling is only profitable if you have a lot of throughput, meaning a lot of people moving through there. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Exactly. 

Mr. SPEAR. That is only applicable—we could measure that very 

easily as a business model. You can see what is profitable and 

what is not. It is really only applicable on 1 percent of the roads 

and bridges in the United States. So for the rest of the country, the 

99 percent, it is fake funding. It doesn’t exist. So it might work in 

certain venues. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. You are preaching to the choir, but thank you. 

Mr. SPEAR. Yeah. Now, it might work in other modes, but specific 

to roads and bridges, we believe that this is not a viable solution. 

And it is extraordinarily regressive, costs up to 35 cents on the dollar to collect. 

Our Build America Fund, 20 cents over 4 years, $340 billion, less 

than 1 cent on the dollar to administer, is the most conservative, 

immediate, and efficient way to raise revenue, and it shores up the 

trust fund and it is deficit-neutral. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Another question I wanted to add as kind of a 

comment, when we are looking at a comprehensive plan to fund an 

investment in our infrastructure, the toll and the private-public 

partnerships repeatedly come up. 

If we can move something right now, today, the transition plan 

that you talked about, so that we are actually recouping funds for 

the roads, but also as we continue to change the way we fuel our 

vehicles, we have it. Is that something that you think that this 

body—and I am very impressed by your diversity. I was a mayor, 

so I look at how much it costs to build a road. I look at the condition, how many people are using it. And God help me, when the 

potholes, which they are there now, you get beat down to the 

ground because of the potholes. 

So what is the one thing, if you could just give me that, that you 

think that we can attack right now that we can bring forward that 

you think would get the biggest consensus so that we can actually 

start moving in the right direction? 

Mr. SCHROER. I will be happy to—I think we have to address the 

shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund first. I think that is what we 

have to do. I think that is our number one criteria today. We have 

got a recision that we are getting ready to face, it is a $8 billion 

recision that will affect Tennessee significantly and as to every 

other State. If we don’t address that, then we are not going to get 

to the core issues that we have. And it allows States to put their 

money on projects that they feel are most important to them. I was 

a mayor as well; I understand that. 

And it needs to be as close to the States—a decision on those 

projects needs to be as close to the State as possible. And that 

means it shouldn’t be in the Federal Government’s hands, it should 

be in the States’ hands, working with local communities on projects 

that are most important to them. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. And I would think that as part of a—if there were 

a funding increase to go forward, I think tying to that would be 

some sort of transition plan. You know, a time-based study that 

46 

would say, based on the saturation into the fleet, how quickly could 

we move to an alternative to the gas tax? Because until we put a 

plan together, it is always the future. It is always tomorrow. And 

it will be tomorrow tomorrow. So I think there is some sort of—— 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. I am willing to work with you all. Thank you 

so much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GRAVES OF MISSOURI. If there aren’t any further questions, 

I want to thank our witnesses for all being here. You all gave great 

testimony. Obviously, this is a very, very big problem that we are 

going to have to tackle. And I think you saw the bipartisanship 

that was displayed here in this committee, which we are very 

proud of on top of that, trying to find solutions. 

With that, I would ask unanimous consent that the record of today’s hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have 

provided answers to any questions that may have been submitted 

to them in writing, and unanimous consent that the record remain 

open for 15 days for additional comments and information submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in today’s hearing. 

Without objection, that is so ordered. 

If no other Members have anything to add—and there aren’t 

any—this subcommittee stands in adjournment. 

[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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