Recreationists: ‘We want our gas tax back!’

Recreationists were there in force at today’s legislative task force meeting, many wearing specially printed-up name tags that said in bright red above their names, “Hello,” and below their names, “I WANT MY GAS TAX BACK.” The Idaho Recreation Council printed them up, said Wendy Coome of the Back Country Horsemen, along with bumper stickers to match - and she promised there’ll be plenty of them seen around the state. Speaking on behalf of “the equine users of the back country,” Coome told the panel that several years ago, horse groups proposed legislation to impose a tax on horse trailers to fund equestrian trails. “We were shot down,” she said. “We were offering you a source of funding, and it never made it out of committee. Somebody might want to go back and look at that again.” She said the bill had an agricultural exemption, but the Idaho Farm Bureau and the Cattlemen’s Association opposed it anyway. “We had a majority of all the horse groups behind us,” she said.

Rep. Rich Wills, R-Glenns Ferry, said he’d like to take a look at that proposal right away.