ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Freight movements in the United States are seriously threatened by the lack of federal funding for infrastructure maintenance and improvement, American Trucking Associations (ATA) President and CEO Bill Graves told reporters last month.

“I don’t know if I’d use the word crisis, but there certainly has been an inadequate federal response to maintaining and improving the infrastructure in this country,” Graves said.

Because the federal government has largely given up its role of lead investor in road and bridge improvements, Graves said, states are exploring ways to raise the necessary funds. One example is the recent sale of an Indiana toll road to a private consortium for $3.8 billion. But such efforts shouldn’t replace federal dollars, he said. “That’s not to say there isn’t a place for those creative funding ideas. We just don’t view it as the best or only solution to funding.”

Right now the Highway Trust Fund, which funds infrastructure projects out of fuel-tax revenues, is at its lowest level in more than three decades. According to Graves, there is “going to have to be a conversation” about how to sustain the Highway Trust Fund in the short term. Chances of a major tax increase the year before a presidential election are slim, however. And while the ATA is not ready to lead the charge for raising the federal fuel tax, Graves said, the group is prepared to discuss what kind of value it would receive if there should be a fuel-tax increase.

“Congress is much more willing to have that discussion today than it was six months ago,” Graves said. “There is a growing realization that even if you launch creatively financed public-private partnerships … that is hardly going to scratch the surface of the money we need for infrastructure investment.”