It’s no surprise that the Highway Trust Fund, or HTF, is almost insolvent again. We’ve known the time is coming.
Last year, we managed to keep it going with the transfer of about $8 billion from the General Trust Fund. But now we’re in trouble again. We’ve been talking about it and writing about it. But the time is here. And the time is now.
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood recently testified before Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the fund is weeks away from being insolvent. This means if Congress doesn’t act, reimbursements to the states for highway and transit construction projects could become a serious problem.
However, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) says it is confident that the HTF situation will be resolved — at least for this year — fairly expeditiously because no one in Congress has any desire to delay it.
