For Immediate Release
June 25, 2002
Contact: Jane Van
Ryan, 202-857-1239; janevanryan@highways.org
Highway Users Praise Montana Senator Baucus for
Bipartisan Bill to Hike Needed Road Revenues Without Hiking Taxes
WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest highway advocacy
group, the American Highway Users Alliance, praised Senate Finance
Committee Chairman Max Baucus for leading today’s introduction of
the Maximum Economic Growth for America through The Highway Trust
Fund (MEGA Trust Act), to restore fuel tax equity and maximize the
funding available for road and bridge investments.
"Senator Baucus’ legislation will maximize the amount
of funding available to improve highway safety without raising fuel
taxes on motorists and truckers," said William D. Fay, president and
CEO of The Highway Users. Addressing the bill’s provisions to
reimburse the Highway Trust Fund for ethanol subsidies and direct
all ethanol taxes to highway investments, Fay added "Ethanol is a
politically volatile issue. Its use costs the Highway Trust Fund $1
billion a year today, an amount that could grow under some ethanol
expansion scenarios to $3 billion by the year 2012. But Senator
Baucus has found a way to alleviate the loss in funding so vital to
our nation’s highway infrastructure while keeping the ethanol
subsidies in place."
The MEGA Trust Act makes needed corrections in the way
federal revenues are credited to the Highway Trust Fund. Nothing in
the bill increases any tax. If enacted, the bill will: 1) fully
credit all taxes paid on gasohol to the Highway Trust Fund
(currently, 2.5¢ goes into the US Treasury’s General Fund); and 2)
shift the cost of our national policy to develop and promote the use
of gasohol from motorists and truckers to general taxpayers. These
two provisions alone would increase Highway Account revenues by at
least $2.1 billion annually (more when ethanol usage expands). In
addition, the bill would: 1) restore interest collected on surpluses
in both the Highway and the Mass Transit Accounts; 2) extend the
basic highway user taxes, so that they do not expire; and 3)
establish a commission to review future financing of federal highway
and transit programs.
The bipartisan list of cosponsors, in addition to
Baucus and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, include US Senators
Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO), Jean Carnahan (D-MO), Larry Craig
(R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Bob Graham (D-FL), Tom Harkin (D-IA),
Harry Reid (D-NV), and John Warner (R-VA).
The American Highway Users Alliance
represents motorists, truckers, and a broad cross-section of
businesses that depend on safe and efficient highways to transport
their families, customers, employees, and products. Highway Users
members pay the bulk of the taxes that finance the federal highway
program and advocate public policies that dedicate those taxes to
improved highway safety and mobility.