Below is the letter that The Highway Users personalized and hand delivered to each member of Congress to prevent the massive highway funding shortfall. Following is the full list of signatories.

We strongly urge you to join with a bipartisan team of your colleagues in cosponsoring the "Highway Funding Restoration Act" (S. 1917 and H.R. 3694). This vital legislation will help to avert the thousands of lost jobs and project delays across the country that will result from an $8.6 billion (27 percent) cut in the federal highway program next year.

On February 7, the full membership of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee and all but one member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee introduced S. 1917 and H.R. 3694, respectively. These identical bills will raise FY2003 funding to $27.7 billion, an amount consistent with the $28 billion in taxes that government forecasters project will be paid by motorists and deposited in the Highway Trust Fund's highway account next year.

The current highway law, TEA-21, tied highway funding to the taxes paid by motorists. But a complicated method of calculating tax receipts, combined with the recent economic slowdown, have produced this economically devastating cut in highway funding for 2003.

Without congressional action, guaranteed highway funding for 2003 will fall to $23.2 billion, down from $31.8 billion this year. Because the highway account already has a cash surplus of $19 billion — taxes already paid in full by American motorists and truckers — it makes no sense for Congress to allow this economy-busting drop in highway funding to occur while the trust fund balance sitting in Washington, DC grows even larger.

We respectfully ask you to cosponsor and work for the enactment of this important legislation.

Sincerely,
(Your Name)

Signatory List