Dear Chairman Graves & Ranking Member Larsen:
As your committee advances the budget reconciliation process, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce commends you for exploring opportunities to restore the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) as the primary mechanism financing critical surface transportation projects through targeted “user fees.”
This is a debate that is long overdue. With existing user fees on gasoline, diesel, and other motor fuels no longer keeping pace with surface transportation investment needs, the HTF requires additional or alternative sources of revenue to remain solvent. Your committee’s consideration of new user fees – including an “electric vehicle (EV) fee” on EVs and hybrids, and a “universal fee” on all passenger vehicles – helps provide options for long-term solvency of the HTF, and importantly greater certainty on our ability to fund our Nation’s transportation infrastructure.
Following the reconciliation process, this debate must continue as part of the surface transportation and infrastructure reauthorization. Modernizing the current user fee system to reflect the realities of rising construction costs, permitting delays, inflation, increasing fuel efficiency, and the growing number of electric vehicles, can help ensure all users contribute meaningfully to our nation’s highway system.
Thank you for considering our views and your work to pass this meaningful budget reconciliation legislation. We look forward to working with you on enacting this into law as well as working with you to pass the next surface transportation and infrastructure reauthorization bill later this year.
Sincerely,
Rodney Davis
Senior Vice President
Government Affairs
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
