The owner of a Butler-area trucking company testified before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday about what he sees as the shortfalls of the federal government’s new infrastructure spending bill.
Mark McClymonds, president of McClymonds Supply & Transit Co. in Muddy Creek Township, spoke before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee during a hearing on the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and criticized what he alleged is spending on “special interest ideas” rather than traditional infrastructure.
“The infrastructure bill last year included some long-overdue investment in our highways and bridges, yet there is a lot more investment needed,” McClymonds told the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee. “It also ignored some of the key shortfalls, like truck parking. Instead of spending money on special interest ideas like EV (electric vehicle) charging stations or unnecessary studies, Congress should put the federal dollars into projects that will meet our most-pressing needs.”
McClymonds noted the importance of the trucking industry — which, he said, moves more than “70% of the U.S. freight tonnage every year” — and said it is impacted more heavily by infrastructure than many other industries.
Increasingly, according to McClymonds, truckers are forced to sit in traffic congestion. He cited a report utilizing data from 2016, saying truckers spent roughly one billion hours in traffic that year, adding $75 billion to the cost of transportation and burning 7 billion gallons — roughly 13% of the industry’s total fuel use — of fuel.
“We must address these bottlenecks in important freight corridors to ensure we don’t cause more harm to our economy and the environment,” McClymonds said. “Because of the global pandemic, many Americans have learned firsthand about the importance of a strong and well-functioning transportation system; when the trucks are not able to operate efficiently the entire supply chain faces a slowdown.”
The Muddy Creek trucking company president also critiqued “proposals to impose a truck-only tax on vehicle miles,” which were not part of the infrastructure bill. McClymonds called them “discriminatory against millions of truckers” who drive roughly one-tenth of all vehicle miles on public roads each year.
He was introduced by Butler-area U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, who is the ranking minority member of the Select Revenue Measures subcommittee.
McClymonds was one of five witnesses in the hearing, alongside Louisiana transit department secretary Shawn Wilson; New Hampshire transportation department commissioner Victoria Sheehan; Joung Lee, deputy director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials; and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a public health advocate from the University of Michigan.
