Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN — Senate negotiators are offering to reduce two proposed fees on motorists and delay countywide elections by two years in a proposed compromise to keep a local transportation funding plan alive as part of massive legislation to overhaul the Texas Department of Transportation.

Several hundred business and community leaders from Arlington, Burleson and other area cities planned to descend on the state Capitol today to show support for the local-option transportation provision, regarded as crucial to resolving worsening traffic congestion in North Texas.

House and Senate appointees to a joint conference committee on the Transportation Department bill held a series of informal discussions throughout the day but hit an early impasse over two key provisions: the local-option provision and a House-passed phase-out of red light cameras.

"We’ve had various informal discussions among members individually, but we still remain at an impasse," said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas, sponsor of SB855, which would allow counties to raise money for road and rail projects.

The Senate added SB855 to the high-priority Transportation Department bill, but it is not in the House-passed measure. The House voted Wednesday to urge its conferees not to include the local-option provision in a final version, but Carona said Thursday that Senate conferees will not accept a bill without some form of the provision.

Carona stands firm

"I have said consistently that local-option provisions are not negotiable," said the powerful transportation panel chairman. "I will not support a bill that does not contain some reasonable version of a local-option funding plan."

SB855 would give county commissioners three funding options to put on the county election ballot: a gasoline tax of up to 10 cents a gallon, a driver’s license fee and a mobility improvement fee that would collected along with auto registration renewals. Under the concessions floated Thursday, the mobility fee would be capped at $30, instead of $60, and the maximum driver’s license fee would be reduced from $24 to $15.

The gasoline tax, which has drawn the strongest opposition from critics of the bill, would remain. The proposed compromise would also delay proposed county elections from 2010 to 2012 to assure better economic conditions when voters are asked to approve the gas tax and proposed fees, Carona said.

He said SB855 backers are gathering signatures from House members to support their assertion that the local-option provision, which has never been debated in the House, has enough support in the chamber to win support. "We believe we have a sufficient number of votes in the House to pass the bill" with the local-option provision, he said.

But House Transportation Chairman Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said House members signaled their opposition in their 84-59 vote Wednesday instructing conferees to keep the provision out of the Transportation Department bill. Pickett said he was concerned that a provision widely opposed by the House membership could endanger the entire bill, which calls for a restructuring of the bureaucracy that oversees the state’s vast transportation network.

Lobbying intensifies

Opposing forces on both sides of the issue ramped up efforts to make their case to lawmakers Wednesday.

Empower Texans, a watchdog group, sent e-mails calling on supporters to urge conferees to oppose the provision.

"Now is not the time to stall the engine of economic growth by imposing new taxes and fees," said Michael Quinn Sullivan, the group’s leader. "We need responsible spending, not higher taxes."

The trip by North Texas leaders, organizers said, is designed to show lawmakers that there is widespread public support for raising taxes and fees for roads and rail in North Texas cities, not just in the hallways of local government, where for much of the past five years city and county politicians have been the driving force behind the issue.

"There is no question this is the most important transportation legislation we’ve seen in 25 years," said Burleson Mayor Ken Shetter, chairman of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition.

While increased gasoline taxes would provide enough funding to build the bulk of a regional rail system and make major highway improvements, local-option supporters have said privately for many months that they may be asked to get behind a compromise that doesn’t include the gas tax to ensure at least partial success during the legislative session.

Much revenue at stake

Securing at least partial funding for the region’s Mobility 2030 plan is essential, they have said. The federal rules governing that plan require that projects placed on it be realistic, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

A 215-mile-plus regional rail system would cost an estimated $457 million a year to build and operate for 20 years, according to a funding options software created by the council of governments.

A 10-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase in the nine largest North Texas counties would generate about $370 million a year by itself, according to the software.

A $10 "mobility fee" increase in annual vehicle registration fees might be more politically palatable and could generate about $53.1 million a year, according to the software. The state constitution prohibits using that money for rail lines — and a proposed constitutional amendment to change that is stalled in the Legislature — but the money could be used on road projects.