Latest news with #Bill5801
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
6-cent gas tax hike central to new transportation deal in WA Legislature
(Getty Images) Transportation budget writers in the Washington Legislature are settling on a revenue package that would hike the state's gasoline tax 6 cents a gallon beginning July 1. The potential gas tax increase, the first in the state since 2016, raises nearly half of the estimated $3.2 billion the new package is expected to bring in over six years. It would up the state's levy from 49.4 cents per gallon to 55.4 cents, then lift it by 2% each year. The proposal is the product of bipartisan negotiations between legislators in the House and Senate seeking a solution to soaring project costs and flagging gas tax collections as drivers transition to more efficient vehicles. 'We're close,' said House Transportation Committee Chair Jake Fey, D-Tacoma. The new proposition in Senate Bill 5801 makes a sizable dent in what's estimated to be a $1 billion shortfall over the next two years and $8 billion over the next six years. Lawmakers say more money is needed to fund highway megaprojects, the Washington State Patrol, state ferries and the removal of culverts and other barriers blocking fish migration. Meanwhile, the two chambers are negotiating over what the new revenue will pay for as they hash out a two-year transportation plan in the $15 billion to $16 billion range. Initial revenue packages released last month totaled $4.4 billion in the House and $3 billion in the Senate. The revised gas tax proposal hews closer to what the Senate previously unveiled. The House had teased raising the tax 9 cents, then indexing it to inflation. The Senate's original plan received some Republican backing, passing 31-18 in March with three Democrats opposed and four Republicans in support. Washington's gas tax is already one of the highest in the country, before accounting for the 18.4-cent federal rate. On top of the gas tax hike, the latest framework includes hikes for the diesel fuel tax — 3 cents a gallon in both fiscal years 2026 and 2028, then those increases indexed to rise 2% annually for inflation. There are also added taxes on vehicle sales, rental cars, luxury vehicles, private jets and a $1 per attendee fee on operators of stadiums and other venues with a capacity of 17,000 or more. One of the bigger-ticket items is $317 million from a $30-per-ton weight fee on heavy-duty trucks that would also rise with inflation in future years. Lawmakers also pencil in $138 million from violations of the state's new speed cameras in work zones. The tax cornucopia also drops some controversial ideas in the earlier House and Senate proposals. There's no increased fee on electric vehicle registrations. There's no new 10% surcharge on e-bike purchases. There's no vehicle registration fee for transit operators. And there's no ferry fare increase. Most notable may be the absence of a new highway use fee the House had floated. The creative fee, patterned after a similar approach in Virginia, would have charged drivers based on their car's fuel economy, with more efficient vehicles paying more. Fey and other Democrats have toyed with such a road usage charge for over a decade. He was disappointed to see it not included in Tuesday's revenue proposal. Senate Transportation Committee Chair Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, said negotiators dropped the charge because of how late in the process it came and the resulting lack of time 'to understand the impacts.' The plan includes other policy changes, including tolling on the entire State Route 520 corridor, not just the floating bridge, mandating biodiesel fuel for state ferries and providing a sales tax exemption for zero-emission buses. But it doesn't include added uses for Tacoma Narrows Bridge toll proceeds or increased enforcement for expired vehicle registration tabs, as the Senate had proposed. The proposal, heard in the House Transportation Committee on Tuesday, is set for a vote from the panel Wednesday morning. The legislative session is scheduled to end Sunday.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Public deserves to be heard on Washington transit projects
Our state is blessed with mountain ranges, fertile farmland, great forests, ocean beaches, hundreds of rivers and creeks, and an inland sea called Puget Sound. Our geography and resources have nurtured an economy that is a leading producer of hops, apples, cherries, seafood, wheat, dairy, aerospace and technology. This diverse economy and complex geography require diversified and complex transportation systems to move people and products every day while addressing future challenges and issues that will face our state. The state highway and ferry systems are the backbones of our state's transportation system and the muscles that make the greater transportation network function are miles of city streets and county roads, transit systems, ports, freight and passenger railroads, shipping lines, trucking companies and many other partners. Hundreds of funding sources — gas taxes, bridge tolls, bus tickets, train fares, vehicle registration fees, county road taxes, transit fares, sales taxes, local ballot measures — fund our transportation infrastructure. The Washington State Transportation Commission, a small, independent state agency, is a citizen-based body with members from everywhere in Washington. For over 30 years, the commission has worked with the Washington State Department of Transportation, cities, counties, transit agencies, tribes and other private and public transportation providers and users bringing the public forum in person to all corners of the state as the state's 20-year Washington Transportation Plan is updated and advanced. In addition, the commission serves as the state tolling authority and the transportation research arm for the Legislature. Now, in Senate Bill 5801, that will add $10 billion in transportation taxes to improve the transportation system, the Legislature proposes to gut the public forum aspect for the development of transportation policy. It is unclear whether any state agency would have that role. Although budget bills are not intended to make policy, in the back of the bill under the heading 'Miscellaneous,' that's exactly what is being proposed. As former officers of the Transportation Commission, we laud the Department of Transportation for its operation of our complex and diverse state transportation systems. However, only an independent body that neither owns nor operates any transportation infrastructure without that inherent bias can fairly envision and evaluate — with public engagement — how the transportation systems in general are performing and how the Washington Transportation Plan should evolve over the next twenty years. People, businesses, local governments and tribes all need and deserve the transparent, balanced approach to an integrated system of statewide transportation planning in the Washington Transportation Plan that has been provided by the Transportation Commission for over 30 years. The best stewardship of scarce public resources and the billions of taxpayer dollars we spend on transportation, requires a stronger role for integrated statewide transportation system planning driven by public engagement, not its elimination as proposed in SB 5801. We urge the Legislature to leave the Transportation Commission's statutory authority without modification and retain its valuable planning and policy role. Anne Haley is a Tacoma native and chairman of the Board of Brown & Haley. She chaired the Washington State Library Commission, and headed the Walla Walla Public Library for 20 years and the Yakima Valley Library District for five years. Jerry Litt was born and raised in rural Eastern Washington and spent 44 years as a planner/community development professional, 28 years in the public sector on both sides of the state and 16 years of private sector consulting for developers, small towns, counties, ports and economic agencies. Tom Cowan served three terms as San Juan County Commissioner and is a past president of the Washington State Association of Counties.
