Standoff continues over local-option fees and taxes in TxDOT bill
May 30, 2009
"Legislators on a House-Senate conference committee trying to hash out a compromise on a bill that would reform the Texas Department of Transportation seem not to have made much progress over night on the biggest unsettled issue."
Written by Brandi Grissom, Vaqueros&Wonkeros
Legislators on a House-Senate conference committee trying to hash out a compromise on a bill that would reform the Texas Department of Transportation seem not to have made much progress over night on the biggest unsettled issue.
State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, wants to give local communities the option to vote on a slate of taxes and fees to raise money for local transportation projects.
State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, says the House won't go for that, and leaving it in could kill the 1,500-page bill.
While most of the other issues in the bill appear to have been worked out, this one seems to still be a snag, judging by this press statement that Carona sent out this morning:
"We will have no money to build new roads in less than four years. In spite of public testimony throughout the interim calling for increased funding, efforts to use traditional statewide methods (indexing/raising the gas tax, vehicle registration fees) have been stalled to a full stop. Diversion has gotten worse, not better (for example, gas taxes will now be subsidizing volunteer fire departments). We passed local mobility funding via the sales tax out of the Senate last session only to have it stopped short of a vote in the House. Yesterday, in the culmination of two years of intense negotiations, legislators of both political parties joined hundreds of citizens and community leaders on the Capitol steps to call for local option transportation funding. The answer to traffic congestion and pollution in our major metro areas comes now as a stranger to the door of the House. Within the House are 77 solid votes or more, and there is only one true way to prove it. Open the doors of the House to this legislation, and LET THE PEOPLE VOTE."
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