Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, has moved to delay by one year the shift of gas taxes away from the state Parks & Rec department. "Actually I would go a step further and say that it makes little sense to me that we are diverting these funds," he said. Instead, he said, "the better part of valor at this point" would be to wait for the governor's highway funding task force to do its work and see where this fits in. Before he proposed his motion, Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, said she couldn't see the logic of proposing a pop tax or something else to replace the gas tax funds for parks. "They're being double taxed - they get to have a tax on the pop they drink while they're snowmobiling, and they also have a gas tax," she said. "There really isn't an alternative funding that is not a double taxation."

Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, said she'd support the motion, but would prefer a permanent cancellation of any shift away from parks, rather than the motion's one-year moratorium. There's been no voting yet on the motion - or any others.

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