SAMPLE LETTER
*cut and paste, use same wording, add your own thoughts or write a completely different letter, JUST DO SOMETHING!
June 24, 2004
The Honorable __________________
### ________ Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator ____________,
I ask that you contact the Senators and Representatives who are participating in the highway bill conference (S.1072/H.R.3550) on behalf of small business trucking professionals like myself. Please tell them to reject section 1609 of the Senate bill. That section has programs that would allow for tolling of existing Interstate highways and would devastate small business truckers. Sections 1604 and 1605 of the House bill would also set the stage for widespread tolling of interstates.
Simply put, tolls are taxes. Small business truckers already make a major investment in the nation’s highways in the form of fuel, user fee and excise taxes. We each pay around $10,000 per year in federal taxes that is supposed to go for construction and maintenance on those highways (not including around $6,000 per year that we pay in state fuel and user fee taxes). Forcing us to pay tolls on roads we’re already paying a huge price for is just plain wrong.
Putting new tolls on Interstate highways will force my fellow truckers and I to use other routes such as local roads and state highways that were not designed to handle trucks and heavy traffic. We are not using these other routes to try to maximize our profits, we are just trying to survive. In addition to all the taxes we pay, high fuel costs and other industry factors have us running on razor-thin profit margins, if any profit at all.
I do support the program in section 1603 of the House highway bill that allows for new construction on Interstate highways and makes tolling voluntary. If there must be a tolling program in the final version of the highway bill, this is the only one that would not unfairly burden people like myself whose livelihood depends on our nation’s highways.
Thank you,
(Sign and provide your address)