Kathy Ruffalo is a government affairs consultant who has had a broad, diverse, and bi-partisan career in public policy with 20 years of experience at both federal and state levels of government.
From 1989 to 1999, Kathy served as a senior Democratic policy advisor to the United States Environment and Public Works Committee with the primary responsibility for developing, drafting and negotiating federal transportation policy. During her tenure with the Committee, Kathy worked on the ISTEA, National Highway System and TEA-21 legislation.
From 1999 to 2004, Kathy left Washington to become a senior policy advisor to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne.
In 2004, Kathy began a government affairs consulting practice. She took a six-month break from her consulting work in 2005, at the request of the Senate Committee leadership, to work on the latest transportation legislation - SAFETEA-LU.
Most recently, Ruffalo was appointed by the United States Congress to be a member of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission.
Ruffalo is a 1989 graduate of Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences.
Gabriel Thank you so much for your comments. I realize there wasn’t a question in your comments but wanted to acknowledge them. Our mandate was, among other things, to identify ways for Congress to fund the federal Highway Trust Fund – we provided Congress with a menu of options in which to do so at the federal level. Transitioning to a VMT system was such an option. We also provided incentives and policy changes that may enable states and local governments to utilize innovative financing mechanisms in the future. While I am a strong proponent of the federal government having a role in maintaining a… Read more
Ken As always, thanks for the commentary. I certainly understand your arguments. The federal fuel taxes have not been raised since 1993 – so I would argue there never seems to be a “good” time for such a debate. And this year has many other obstacles – some of which you’ve mentioned. Having said that, personally, I am not a proponent of short-term authorization bills (one or two years). I realize that SAFETEA-LU was two years late and it created tremendous uncertainty among states and local governments. I believe a short-term bill would do the same. But, with the SAFETEA-LU deadline looming, Congress will have to… Read more
Jon Thanks for the questions. Here are my thoughts: 1. When we proposed that Congress undertake the process to study a transition to a VMT system for the future, it wasn’t because we thought it was the silver bullet solution. If there are continued reductions in VMT, the amount of revenue raised would be impacted. However, we do not believe a reduction in VMT (in the magnitude we’ve seen in past months) would have as dramatic an impact on the Highway Trust Fund revenues as new technology and alternative fuel use will have on a motor fuel tax funding system. 2. As to privacy, while we… Read more
Pat Sorry for the late response. It has been a crazy week. I know others will have views on your question – so here are mine. Let me start by making a couple of statements. I am a strong supporter of having a federal transportation program. We can argue over the details of such a program (and how well the programs have been structured in the past) but I believe the federal government has a role to play in maintaining a national transportation system. I am also a strong supporter of more federal investment – if the federal government wants to maintain control over… Read more
DJ Thanks for the question. We had some very lengthy debates on this subject. We certainly acknowledge the important role that states and local governments play in the current funding and financing system for surface transportation – and would envision the same or even growing role in the future. We have made several recommendations that we believe may further enhance the ability of states and local governments to develop innovative financing solutions. Having said that, our Congressional mandate required us to consider an “opt-out” or devolution option. We did consider this type of option and rejected it. We do believe the federal government is… Read more
Mr. Crandall Thank you for your question. You’ve raised a key issue in the upcoming debate on the surface transportation bill and probably the FAA reauthorization bill as well – should the “user pays” principle be the foundation of any funding mechanism. It was our opinion that the “user pays” method is established for many services where consumers make choices about consumption and should be continued in the surface transportation arena as well. The current major funding mechanism for surface transportation – the motor fuel tax -- has served us well over the last 50 years. But given the uncertainty about the… Read more
Bob Thanks for your question and also for your continued work in this area. Here are my thoughts on this issue: It would be my hope that the industry would be the ones to begin the work to develop standards for any VMT technology. I believe that industry should be the driver for any standards. Having said that, DOT would eventually need to mandate the use of these standards to require original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to install the technology by a date certain that would allow for a 2020 implementation process. After market installation of the technology on… Read more
Steve Thank you for your interest in our report and for your question. We spent a great deal of time on this issue. While we did not reach a consensus on the particular issue you raised, one of the guiding principles that the Commission used during its deliberations was that users of the transportation system should bear the full cost of their use of the system “to the greatest extent practicable”. We recognize the need and appropriateness of cross-subsidization. But we also state that such cross-subsidization should be intentional, fully transparent and meet system and equity goals. … Read more
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