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Washington, D.C.—Congress should reject a proposal to use Customs user fee revenue for unrelated infrastructure projects, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) told a congressional panel today.

In testimony submitted to the House Homeland Security Committee’s Border and Maritime Security subcommittee, NTEU National President Tony Reardon urged Congress to reject a fee-diversion provision in a Senate-passed highway bill that’s under consideration in the House.

“If Congress is serious about job creation, wait times, international tourism, trade enforcement and facilitation, (it) should reject Section 52202 of H.R. 22,” Reardon said.

He added that Congress should instead allow the fees to be indexed to inflation and “use the increased fees to improve border security and processing.”

The NTEU leader submitted testimony for a hearing on Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) public-private partnerships. Under one such partnership, CBP provides additional inspection services and is reimbursed by private companies and state and local governments for expenses such as overtime and the cost of hiring additional personnel.

Reardon said this program would be unnecessary if Congress simply indexes Customs user fees to inflation and uses the increased revenue—$1.4 billion over 10 years—for the purpose specified under federal law: to help solve CBP’s chronic staffing problems.

CBP recoups its costs for inspecting and processing cargo, passengers and commercial shipments by collecting fees from users such as commercial vessels, rail companies, private aircraft and air and sea passengers.

NTEU, the nation’s largest independent federal-employee union, represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including 25,000 CBP employees.