Vice President Mike Pence speaking to the nation’s Governor’s recently promised the U.S. would pass an historic infrastructure bill by the end of next year. Waterways Council Senior Vice President Deb Calhoun says while there’s a lot of rhetoric on the issue by both the Administration and Congress, the key question is how to pay for it.

She says the way most infrastructure is paid for is through cost share between the federal treasury dollars and the diesel fuel tax which goes into the dedicated water trust fund. Calhoun says one idea her group has is to change the cost share in order to get those projects completely more quickly and less expensively.

Calhoun says another idea her group has is to transfer a small amount of hydro power revenue to the waterways trust fund.

Calhoun says there wouldn’t be any higher rates or taxes and infrastructure would benefit from the small redirection of funds.