ATA Strongly Supports The Freight FOCUS Act Of 2010

Oct 22, 2010 - 14 years ago

The American Trucking Associations is proud to lend its support to the Freight FOCUS Act of 2010, introduced by Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.). The legislation would address critical freight transportation needs, focusing resources on the nation's most important goods movement corridors. Rather than draw resources from the depleted Highway Trust Fund, much of the funding would come from additional user fees paid by those modes which benefit from projects funded through a competitive process administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Furthermore, the bill makes sure that revenue is distributed according to each mode's financial contribution to the program. “This legislation will go a long way toward addressing critical bottlenecks on our nation's most important highway corridors,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “These chokepoints cost the trucking industry tens of billions of dollars each year, and force trucks to waste a tremendous amount of fuel. With Congresswoman Richardson's help, we can begin to fix these problem areas, which will reduce shipping costs and lower emissions from all vehicles.”

ATA is aware of other freight proposals under consideration by Congress and we look forward to continuing to work with Members and the Administration to come up with the best available solutions to address the nation's freight transportation challenges. ATA also strongly encourages Congress to pass a transportation authorization bill as soon as possible so that we can begin to address our many transportation infrastructure needs. While ATA has agreed to support a diesel tax increase to fund the most pressing freight needs on our highway system, we recognize that this will not be sufficient to address all of our surface transportation challenges. Therefore, we encourage Congress to pass a similar gasoline tax increase to fund additional projects with significant national and regional benefits.