WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) praised today’s vote in the United States Senate to include their highway study bill as an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure framework, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The Senate voted 95-3 to include their bill, the Highway Cost Allocation Study Act of 2021, which would require the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to conduct a study of vehicular highway use, to understand how Americans’ highway use has changed since the last study.
The ensuing study would provide Congress and the Department of Transportation with updated information about highway use for the first time since 1997, almost a quarter of a century ago. This information would inform decisions to address the Highway Trust Fund’s revenue shortfalls during its next reauthorization cycle.
“This amendment is the first step we must undertake to determine how we pay for our infrastructure moving forward,” Senator Lummis said. “Since 2008, we have repeatedly bailed out the Highway Trust Fund. That makes it a trust fund that we cannot actually trust. A highway cost allocation study provides the data that we need in order to make long-term, sustainable, and fiscally sound decisions about how best to invest in our nation’s aging infrastructure. I’m grateful to my colleague Senator Mark Kelly for co-authoring this amendment and Senator John Cornyn for his support.”
“As we work to pass this historic and bipartisan bill to upgrade and modernize our country’s infrastructure, I’m glad to see the Senate include our amendment that will make sure we have the latest data to make decisions about our highway infrastructure. This is critical to growing states like Arizona and other western states, and I am grateful to Senator Lummis for her partnership on it,” Senator Kelly said.
To read the bill text, click here.
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