Law360 Quotes Susan Lent on “Wish List” for Trump Administration’s Infrastructure Plan

Susan Lent, a partner at Akin Gump who leads the firm’s infrastructure and transportation practice, has been quoted in the Law360 article “What’s On Attys’ Wish List For Trump’s Infrastructure Plan.” The article reports that President Trump is expected to outline his infrastructure investment blueprint in his State of the Union address this week to Congress.

One proposal mentioned, according to the article, would be to raise the federal gas tax that goes toward the Highway Trust Fund to pay for surface transportation projects. In recent weeks, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Problem Solvers Caucus and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have both thrown their support behind such an idea. The Chamber, the article notes, has called for an increase of five cents per gallon a year for the next five years for a total of a 25 cent increase. It also suggests indexing the tax to inflation and for future increases in fuel economy.

“What was good about the Problem Solvers Caucus and the Chamber of Commerce’s plan was to have the gas tax indexed to inflation, and really, the primary key issue is how to pay for infrastructure investment,” said Lent.

Continuing, Lent added, “If you can’t figure out a way to pay for more spending — unless you want to spend more general funds, though that doesn’t seem to be where the Republicans or Democrats want to go — you have to figure out some stable revenue stream and that’s raising the gas tax or having a vehicle miles traveled fee.”