The Fleet Business Authority
Issue link: http://heavydutytrucking.epubxp.com/i/307131
WASHINGTONreport 12 HDT • MAY 2014 www.truckinginfo.com She said the bill should cover a longer term than the current two-year program – up to six years, reflecting the strong desire of highway users and planners for an extended, predictable program. Also, the bill should maintain current formulas for core programs, keep current levels of funding plus inflation, expand opportunities for rural areas and continue efforts to leverage local resources for projects. "The reason the four of us are standing here is to send a strong signal to this country that we, as leaders of this committee, have worked across party lines to act before the Highway Trust Fund cannot pay its bills," Boxer said. She said the committee will finish work on its draft this spring. On the House side, the Transportation and Infrastruc- ture Committee is holding hearings in preparation for drafting a bill by summer. Among the issues it is considering are public-private partnerships, which will be part of the funding mix in the bill, although the precise role they will play is not clear. Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., said his partnership proposal is a model for how partnerships can work in the U.S. His Partnership to Build America Act, which has bipartisan support in Congress, would create a tax incentive for private interests to invest $50 billion in infrastructure projects. Businesses would buy bonds in return for tax-free repatriation of a certain amount of their overseas earnings. The $50 billion could be leveraged up to $750 billion in infrastructure financing, Delaney said. Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., chairman of the commit- tee's Panel on Public-Private Partnerships, told Delaney that his idea has great appeal to members of the committee. Partnership experts from Canada, where these financing mechanisms are more widely used, had mixed advice for the panel. They said partnerships can work but cautioned that they require careful design and management. Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor at the University of Toronto who studies Canadian partner- ships, pointed out that these are financing tools rather than funding sources. The money to pay for the partner- ships comes from taxpayers through the general revenue stream, he said. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., underscored the point by noting that Canadian motorists pay about 37 cents a gallon in gas taxes, compared to 18.4 cents a gallon in the U.S. "Our problem is we don't have the guts to raise the money," DeFazio said. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., illustrated the partisan divide over highway funding by responding that the problem is not a lack of guts but of getting value for the public's investment. Hazmat changes wanted In another development, hazardous materials carriers told Congress they want regulatory changes in the highway bill. William Downey, executive vice president for the hazmat carrier Kenan Advantage Group, told legislators that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration should withdraw its proposed wetlines rule. Downey, who was speaking for American Trucking Associations, also said that the requirements for obtaining a hazmat endorsement to the Commercial Driver License can be improved. Further, the next law should do a better job of distin- guishing between the responsibilities of hazmat shippers Funding uncertainty has forced the Rhode Island Department of Transportation to stop advertising new highway projects. Review finds weakness in size and weight study A preliminary review by the Transportation Re- search Board indicates possible weaknesses in the Department of Transportation's Compre- hensive Truck Size and Weight Study. As part of a peer review process, a TRB committee examined "desk scans," or surveys of past research that the department is using to inform its study. The committee found that the scans contain the documentation needed to support the analysis methods DOT will make. "However, in most cases the selection of methods appears not to have been a consequence of the desk scans," the TRB committee says in its report. TRB surmised that the shortcoming may have arisen because Congress did not give the department enough time to do the study. Congress ordered the study in the 2012 highway law to help answer the difficult policy and political question of whether or not to raise the national size and weight limits. The analysis is due next October in preparation for the next highway bill. TRB recommended that the department continue work on the scans by including additional analysis covering alternative methods of calculating the impact of changes in the limits. w a s h i n g t o n r e p o r t _ m a y . i n d d 1 2 washington report_may.indd 12 4 / 2 9 / 1 4 3 : 4 4 P M 4/29/14 3:44 PM