Legislators support new taxes
Lawmakers OK package for roads
By Janie Har
The Portland Oregonian
Sunday, May 24, 2009 12:26 AM PDT
SALEM — Legislators have agreed on a sweeping transportation package that raises $300 million a year in taxes and fees for new roads and interchanges and promises thousands of jobs for Oregonians.
In exchange, drivers will pay 6 cents more a gallon for gas by 2011. Registration and title fees will increase, and it will cost more to get new license plates.
And drivers living in Multnomah or Clackamas counties can expect to fork over more money to help fix the troubled Sellwood Bridge. House Bill 2001 came out of a joint transportation committee on a unanimous vote Friday. It’s the first major revenue-raising package of the legislative session and probably the only one of its size that will get so much love from both Republicans and Democrats.
“It is the most ambitious investment in the business climate of the state we have ever had,” said Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches, his chamber’s chairman of the transportation committee.
Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, the vice chairman, praised the plan for clearing freight bottlenecks and priming industrial land for development.
“These are tax increases that don’t grow government. These are tax increases that grow the private sector,” he said at a news conference.
The plan is not without its opponents. Environmentalists have said that it is too friendly to cars and trucks and that it doesn’t do enough to cut global warming pollution. They wanted more money for bicycle and pedestrian paths.
But opposition from the anti-tax lobby has eased. Russ Walker, Oregon director of FreedomWorks, a national anti-tax group, said his group will probably focus on other tax proposals coming out of the Legislature.
“I would really have loved to see them do that with existing dollars,” he said of the road projects.
“That all said, we have got huge, huge tax increases coming at us in the form of the massive income tax and hospital provider tax.”
The transportation package is a priority for House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, and Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who have pushed it as a way to put Oregonians back to work. The money, they say, is expected to sustain 4,600 jobs a year.
The list of projects is spelled out in the bill, at the insistence of legislators who said the move will shore up support from voters mistrustful of government spending.
In 1999, legislators approved a transportation package that included a 5-cents-a-gallon gas tax increase and would have raised $150 million a year.
Opponents collected enough signatures to put it on the ballot, where voters killed it.
This time, truckers, the American Automobile Association and the Oregon Petroleum Association have all signed off on increasing the 24-cents-a-gallon tax on gas to 30 cents.
The tax would kick in after two straight quarters of job growth, or January 2011, whichever comes first.
For its support, the fuel association got something it’s long desired: a moratorium on local tax increases. Cities and counties may raise their own fuel taxes after 2013 but only after referring the issue to voters.
Counties also will be prohibited from increasing separate registration fees until 2013, although there is an exception for Multnomah and Clackamas counties to raise more money to fix the Sellwood Bridge. County commissioners haven’t determined how much they would increase fees once the state proposal becomes law.
Legislative leaders also pointed out the proposal’s green-friendly components.
The plan includes more money for transit for the elderly and disabled, creates an “Urban Trail Fund” for bikes and pedestrians, and directs the state to start a pilot program to test congestion pricing.
Still, visibly missing from Friday’s work session were environmental groups, who wanted provisions to stop pollution in other parts of the state.
Bob Stacey, executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, called the projects plucked by legislators of the “pork barrel” kind and said, “We won’t be happy with it, and we will oppose it.”
The House could vote on the bill next week, followed by the Senate.
Ray Dickerson wrote on May 24, 2009 8:08 AM: