"America Builds: Highways to Move People and Freight"
House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit
2025-01-22
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Source: Congress.gov
Summary
This hearing examines the critical issues surrounding the reauthorization of the nation's highway and transportation programs, emphasizing the need for bipartisan, effective legislation. Witnesses from AASHTO, the American Trucking Associations, and Vulcan Materials Company discuss the importance of stable, multi-year funding, the need for improved project delivery timelines, and challenges such as safety, inflation, and environmental impacts. Key topics include the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, electric vehicle use, permitting delays, workforce development, and the impacts of the recent executive orders on transportation funding. The hearing underscores the urgency of addressing infrastructure deficits and improving safety across roadways, bridges, and transit systems, while advocating for efficient, transparent, and equitable policies that support economic growth and public safety.
Participants
Transcript
I ask unanimous consent the Chairman be authorized to declare a recess at any time during today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at today's hearing and ask questions. Without objection, so ordered. As a reminder, if members wish to insert a document into the record, please also email it to documentsti at mail.house.gov. Again, that's documentsti at mail.house.gov. I now recognize myself for the purposes of an opening statement for five minutes. Today's hearing begins our subcommittee's activity in the 119th Congress. We have a number of new members of Congress on this subcommittee, so I want to welcome them as well as my colleagues who have previously served. I'm honored to serve as Chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee and I look forward to working with Chairman Graves and committee members as we begin a very active Congress. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IJA, included provisions to authorize our nation's highway programs until September 30th, 2026. As we begin the important work of reauthorizing our nation's surface transportation programs, this committee will build upon the bipartisan successes of the 118th Congress, and I look forward to working with Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Larson, Ranking Member Norton, the rest of my colleagues in the Trump administration to produce a bipartisan, member-driven bill that revitalizes our nation's infrastructure. It's important that we hear from those working and interfacing directly with these programs to ensure congressional intent is being followed. Our highway network ensures the safe and efficient movement of people and freight and improves economic competitiveness. In fact, the United States transportation system is comprised of 4.2 million
miles of public roads, and almost 620,000 bridges. This infrastructure maintains our supply chain with the free-flowing movement of goods across our country. To ensure goods move efficiently and keep costs low for American goods and services, we must continue to invest in our nation's most vital infrastructure, and that, of course, is our highways and bridges. The highways, roads, and bridges linking our communities and states, supported through existing core formula programs, are the foundation of our economy. To keep projects moving, continued flexibility for our state departments of transportation is imperative. States know their unique transportation needs and how to best address them. We must continue to uphold and abide by this hallmark principle in the next highway bill. So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today who will be able to share what's working, what's not, and why a simple extension of the current law would be detrimental for state DOT's planning of multi-year projects. While I believe most here today understand the urgent need to address our nation's most pressing infrastructure concerns, we must also recognize we don't have an unlimited checkbook. IJA authorized and appropriated 365 billion for highway programs. Within the five-year reauthorization for highway programs, the law increased funding by 62% compared to the five-year average of the previous bill, the 2015 FAST Act, Therefore, you're looking at a staggering increase, obviously, there. On top of reauthorizing existing programs, IJA created new discretionary programs, including efforts to prioritize electric vehicle charging infrastructure, cut carbon emissions, and support active transportation projects like bike lanes, among others. So with our national debt surpassing 36 trillion and adding an additional 70,000 per minute, we must scrutinize and streamline programs to address waste and ensure our tax dollars are focused on reliable infrastructure that will help grow our GDP.
We must also have a frank discussion about the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, the main funding source for highway projects. Since 2008, Congress has transferred approximately $275 billion to cover the shortfall of revenues as expenditures have grown. Highway funding relies on a user pays principle. It's pretty simple. You purchase fuel to fill up your vehicle to use the roads, and the fuel taxes collected from that purchase go into the Highway Trust Fund. However, electric vehicles, which are often heavier than their conventional counterparts because of the weight of their batteries, do not pay into the Highway Trust Fund.
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