Trucking Industry Likes Higher Fuel Prices — When They Help Truckers

To hear American Trucking Association (ATA) vice chairman Barbara Windsor tell the Senate environment panel today, truckers would face a grim economic future if the price of diesel fuel rises, as the ATA predicts would happen if Congress passes climate change legislation.

windsor1.jpgBarbara Windsor of the ATA, at right, with Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO). (Photo: ATA)

"If we have to add costs for diesel, I think we’d have a decline in jobs," Windsor told Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the senior Republican on the environment committee.

But for the ATA, more expensive diesel fuel isn’t always a bad thing — only when it results from putting a price on carbon.

The truckers’ group supports increasing the federal diesel fuel tax, which has remained static for 16 years at 24 cents per gallon, but only "so long as the revenue is not diverted to other causes," as ATA’s chairman explained this month.

So the ATA is in favor of putting a price on high-emissions diesel fuel, but only when the resulting revenue is used to advance transportation policies that meet with the trucking industry’s approval. What makes the truckers different, then, from any other D.C. interest group that lobbies tooth and nail for its own bottom line?

For one, the ATA-endorsed claim that the climate bill amounts to a "$3.6 trillion gas tax" uses inflated estimates that differ markedly from those used by the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Both the CBO and EPA have found that acting on climate change would lead to fuel price increases of around 25 cents per gallon by 2030. Meanwhile, diesel prices rose by 56 cents per gallon over a span of just three months this spring, a phenomenon the ATA chalked up to oil speculators. (The ATA has yet to endorse Rep. Pete DeFazio’s [D-OR] proposal to tax oil speculators to pay for infrastructure improvements.)

Secondly, Windsor told the Senate today that as an alternative to passing the climate bill, the ATA would support continued use of SmartWay, a voluntary emissions reduction incentive program created by the trucking industry and the EPA. In fact, SmartWay is expanded in the Senate climate bill, with a competitive financing program established for the EPA to reward commercial shippers that use cleaner transportation methods.

Of course, such SmartWay financing would likely benefit electrified freight rail as a workable alternative to trucking, which now carries more than 80 percent of the nation’s freight, according to Windsor. Freight rail also stands to gain from the climate bill’s set-aside of nearly 3 percent of emissions "allowance revenue" for greener transport.

Perhaps, then, the prospect of competing with freight rail is driving the trucking industry’s climate stance as much as any anticipated increase in diesel prices.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Know Your Transportation Lobbyists: The American Trucking Association

|
Earlier this week, we took a closer look at the congressional lobbying teams employed by the transport sector’s biggest players, AASHTO and APTA. Today, it’s time to meet the representatives of the American Trucking Association (ATA), which reported $1.32 million in lobbying spending during the first half of this year on its congressional disclosures — […]

Trucks Gone Green?

|
This image comes courtesy of TrucksDeliver.org, not the Onion. If BP can stand for "Beyond Petroleum," what’s to stop the trucking industry from claiming to "deliver a cleaner tomorrow"? Not much, apparently. In a story about the current practices of K Street lobbyists, the Washington Post reports that even the American Trucking Associations — a […]

Obama Admin Declines to Consider New Funding for Transportation

|
Having entertained legislators’ own ideas about how best to fund future transportation spending, the House Ways and Means committee turned to representatives from the administration and key interest groups today to hear their thoughts on the matter. The administration’s view could not have been much clearer — this business is all very important, but we’re […]

Hastily-Debated Collins Measure Could Put More Tired Truckers on the Road

|
It just wouldn’t be Congress if we weren’t trying to debate substantive policy changes, with drastic implications for public safety, with a government shutdown deadline fast approaching. As Congress tries to wrap up the hideously-named “cromnibus” (continuing resolution (CR) + omnibus) spending bill for the rest of FY 2015 by Thursday, one provision is attracting […]

Obama Chooses Trucking Industry Lobbyist to Regulate Truckers

|
The White House’s choice of trucking lobbyist Anne Ferro to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) — the agency charged with preventing truck crashes — prompted consternation yesterday from a senior Democrat on the Senate committee that must approve the nomination. Anne Ferro, nominated to lead the FMCSA. (Photo: Smart Woman) Frank Lautenberg […]