ACEC & Coaltion Partners Urge Congress to Create Nationwide VMT Implementation Program

ACEC News / Advocacy

April 13, 2021

ACEC & Coaltion Partners Urge Congress to Create Nationwide VMT Implementation Program

With the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee beginning work on reauthorizing surface transportation programs, ACEC and its coalition partners are calling for creating of a comprehensive national vehicle miles traveled (VMT) implementation program.

Motor fuel tax receipts are no longer being sufficient to replenish the Highway Trust Fund (HTF). Since 2008, Congress has had to transfer $158 billion from the General Fund and other sources to keep the HTF solvent.

In a letter to Committee leadership, the coalition recommended VMT as the “long-term solution to ensure HTF viability and the future health of our surface transportation system, and to maintain the user-fee principle upon which the HTF is founded.”  The group recommends continuing the Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives (STSFA) Program to provide grants to states for pilot projects to test the design, implementation, and acceptance of user-based systems; and, creating a nationwide implementation program that will address data collection, user equity, interoperability, administrative structure and costs, and public acceptance.

Responding to the letter, House T&I Committee Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) said, “I look forward to working with Members of Congress and the transportation community to enact a national VMT pilot that addresses all privacy issues, ensures rural drivers are not unduly burdened, and reaffirms a commitment to the user-pays principle by putting us on a path to a sustainable user fee for the Highway Trust Fund.”

Click here to read the letter.

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