Carper Urges Colleagues to Do Better on Transportation Bill

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) took to the Senate floor to urge his colleagues to step off a reckless path on transportation funding that threatens to seize federal dollars from across the government to pay for our country’s roads, highways, bridges and transit systems.  

“Instead of raising and indexing the user fees that have supported the Highway Trust Fund since its inception, we’re putting all reason aside, and making reckless choices that stand to compromise the way we finance and pay for all government programs,” Senator Carper said. “We have a tradition in this country that things worth having are worth paying for, and asking the people and businesses that use our roads, highways, bridges and transit systems to pay for them is the right thing to do.”

This afternoon, the Senate sent legislation it passed this summer to conference with a version passed by the House last week. Both pieces of legislation authorize a multi-year transportation strategy, but pay for it by cobbling together funds that are unrelated to our surface transportation system, including a massive contribution of Federal Reserve capital, which former Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned is bad policy. 

Watch Senator Carper’s remarks.