Lawmakers offer two bills funding highway work

BOISE – House lawmakers introduced two new transportation funding bills Wednesday worth nearly $70 million annually, measures they’re hoping will be enough to begin easing a $240 million highway funding shortfall, but not too much to prompt the unrest that followed Gov. Butch Otter’s now-withdrawn plan to increase car registration fees six-fold.

Otter aides said he backs the larger of the two new measures, which now goes to the full House.

The first bill, backed unanimously by the House Ways and Means Committee, would raise a total of $68.5 million. It would raise the gasoline tax 3 cents to 28 cents per gallon, generating $27 million; boost fees for commercial trucks by $18 million; and increase registration fees on passenger vehicles to as much as $80 for new cars, raising $23.5 million.

The second bill would eliminate incentives meant to stimulate development of biofuels, reaping $1.2 million annually.

With the 2008 session winding down, House and Senate leaders have said agreement on new sources of money to fix Idaho’s battered roads and bridges will be critical before lawmakers adjourn.

These bills may represent the limit of what legislators are willing to approve in a single year – particularly when most of the state’s 105 legislators are facing re-election in the May 27 primary, then the Nov. 4 general election.

“This is a first step toward a ‘going-home bill,’ ” said House Majority Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly.

While short of Otter’s original proposal, the governor has given his blessing to the plan.

“It’s a first step,” said Clete Edmunson, Otter’s transportation policy adviser, adding the 2009 Legislature will likely have to take up the matter again, to raise even more.

Idaho registration fees and the state’s gas tax haven’t been increased in more than a decade.

Pam Lowe, director of the Idaho Department of Transportation, presented the bill that included the gas tax and registration fee increases to the House panel, another sign momentum is gaining behind this package that was absent from previous proposals.

In all, about a dozen transportation proposals have been introduced this year, though few have gained much traction.

Otter “has worked with us on this, including both with legislators and ITD,” she said of the $68.5 million plan. “I think it’s got good support.”

Backers of the bill to withdraw the biofuels deductions say it is timely because ethanol and biodiesel are now established, and the rising price of gasoline has made it easier for alternatives to compete. Rep. James Ruchti, D-Pocatello and co-sponsor along with Rep. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, acknowledged the $1.2 million in revenue that would flow to Idaho roads is just a sliver of what’s needed.

Still, anything will help, he said.

“If we can just get 200 more of these bills, I think we’ve got our funding shortfall licked,” Ruchti said, prompting laughter.

Separately, House lawmakers Wednesday offered a mixed reaction to two additional revenue-boosting bills for the Idaho Transportation Department, killing one and advancing the other.

Lawmakers voted 44-21 against a bill that would have charged an extra $10 each for the state’s 104,000 specialty license plates. They approved, 58-8, a measure already backed by the Senate that would raise highway funding $1.8 million by increasing fees on temporary registration of trucks.

Rep. JoAn Wood, R-Rigby and chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee, said before the vote that plugging holes in Idaho’s transportation shortfall comes down to a simple question.

“Are you willing to help us out in getting more money or are you not?” she said.