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Today in Interstate History

Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Transportation. U.S. Commerce Secretary Frederick H. Mueller. Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Commerce.

December 26, 1959

Democratic Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia and U.S. Commerce Secretary Frederick H. Mueller, in an exchange of letters made public by the former, each pledged to work in placing the Interstate System construction program back on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. Byrd, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote that measures enacted that year increasing the federal gasoline tax and diverting general revenue to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent should be both temporary and one-time-only. Mueller opined how that year's central challenge had been "to get out from under the chaos resulting from the Federal-aid highway act which suspended pay-as-you-go and which raised authorizations for highway aid far beyond the revenue capacity of the highway trust fund."