American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear said the trucking industry is optimistic after today’s meeting between President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders, with all parties agreeing on the need for a well-funded infrastructure bill.


“Americans are literally wasting billions of dollars and millions of hours stuck in traffic because there has not been the necessary investment and maintenance of our nation’s roads and bridges,” Spear said. “We are encouraged to hear President Trump, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer and other key Congressional Democrats are in agreement on a ‘big, bold’ vision to invest as much as $2 trillion on our deteriorating infrastructure.


“The trucking industry is intimately familiar with the issues our nation faces due to  deteriorating roads and bridges,” he said, “and we have a tool that can generate $340 billion over the next 10 years to fix our bridges and fill potholes across the country. The fuel tax is the one funding tool in the toolbox that pays for itself by users. It is the most effective, efficient and yes, conservative, way of generating the amount of money we need to do the job.”


ATA has proposed a five-cent increase in the fuel user fee over four years as part of the Build America Fund, a total twenty-cent increase that would generate $340 billion in funds for immediate investment in the nation’s roads and bridges.
ATA was also one of dozens of business and labor groups to send a letter to the president and congressional Democrats urging them take real, bipartisan action on infrastructure. 


“Defining the scope of the problem and outlining a vision to address it is an excellent start, but action is what is needed next,” Spear said. “When these leaders reconvene in three weeks, we call on President Trump and Congress to demonstrate the kind of courage that Presidents Reagan and Clinton once did and advance an infrastructure bill with real increases in revenue – the kind of immediate funding that can only come from increasing the fuel tax.”