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Office of Bill Shuster

WASHINGTON��— Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the transportation policy committee in the House, said there is not enough congressional support to approve an increase of fuel taxes to pay for infrastructure projects vital to the trucking industry.

“There are a lot of ideas out there. I know that the popular thing that a lot of people are talking about is the gas tax. The user fee is what it really is. But I just don’t believe the votes are there,” Shuster said Jan. 22 at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting here. “The [next highway] bill has to be fiscally responsible. Quite frankly, we can’t pass a bill that doesn’t pay for this, and not on debt. We got to find the dollars.”

Shuster said repatriation of funds is being talked about as an ideal way to come up with dollars to pay for big-ticket highway programs. That proposal would be included in a tax overhaul package that would come out of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Funding for the federal Highway Trust Fund account is due to run out when the 2012 MAP-21 law expires in May, and the chairman said he is aiming to meet that deadline, but noted that “again, the Ways and Means Committee, it’s really in their purview.”

“We’re working with them on a daily, weekly basis to come up with some solutions and the amount of dollars that we need. We’re working with them,” Shuster told Transport Topics.

The national tax on gas and diesel has not been raised since 1993. A majority of the trucking sector supports increasing the federal fuel tax.