As members of Congress meet in conference to debate the merits of the Senate-passed Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) and proposals from the House of Representatives, three organizations have set a May 15 Capitol Hill briefing and are urging them to consider new and innovative approaches to a number of serious problems facing the transportation system.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Independent Institute, and Reason Foundation believe the politics of transportation are broken and that although the Highway Trust Fund has been pushed to the brink of insolvency, none of the proposals pending before Congress address this imminent threat to the nation’s surface transportation infrastructure.
The May 15 briefing—from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2212, Washington, D.C.—will feature a panel of transportation policy scholars discussing several possible solutions, including returning funding responsibility to the states, replacing fuel taxes with more sustainable revenue-collection mechanisms, and expanding private-sector participation in the provision of transportation facilities.