A plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue for transportation was sent back to its committee Tuesday, a move the bill’s sponsor said will allow for further changes.
Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, the sponsor of House Bill 170, said he has revisions ready to be made and that the bill could reach the House floor as soon as Monday.
“We’ll have it back in the next day or two,” Roberts said.
HB 170 has already undergone major changes since it was first introduced in late January, mostly over how cities and counties tax motor fuel. Left intact is a plan to replace the state’s sales tax on gasoline with an excise tax of 29.2 cents per gallon, create new registration fees for owners of electric vehicles and eliminate a $5,000 tax credit for buying an electric car.
The coming changes to the bill are designed to please both the Georgia Municipal Association and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia. The GMA has been critical of Roberts’ plan, while ACCG endorsed it only to later raise new concerns.
Roberts has already made changes based on local governments’ concerns and appears ready to do so again.
Roberts said his committee will likely meet Wednesday to consider the changes, although the bill was not on the committee’s agenda late Tuesday afternoon. If adopted in committee Wednesday, the bill could reach the House floor as soon as Thursday.
Later Tuesday, at a Legislative Black Caucus hearing on the transportation bill, Roberts walked through the changes he plans to introduce Wednesday. All of them are seemingly minor changes with major impacts on local governments. One would put the special local option sales tax back on diesel fuel, which was inadvertently exempted in earlier versions. Another would extend current taxes targeted for property tax rollbacks for an extra year.
Meanwhile, Roberts' counterpart in the Senate raised concerns about the House's approach overall. Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, said he isn't sure gasoline taxes should be the basis for infrastructure funding.
Williams said Senate Republicans have not developed an opinion on transportation funding, but he added, “I do think it’s going to be really difficult to get the Senate to vote for a bill that takes local money away.”
He appeared to be in search of a simpler, more elegant solution.
“If we’re going to pass something that raises a billion dollars, it needs to be pretty easy to explain,” he said. “I personally think that if we’re going to expand to transit, that we need funds that can be used for transit.”
Williams won applause for expressing support for House Bill 213, which would end the 50-50 restriction on how MARTA spends its money. "I'm a believer in transit. … I do take serious the fact that all the money (in HB 170) is going to roads and bridges," he said. "Again, if you're only taxing motor fuel, you're going to be stuck."
Williams again raised the idea of increasing the state’s cigarette tax, which currently is 37 cents per pack.
“I can vote for a cigarette tax — as long as we’re not the highest in the Southeast,” he said. “This is money that can be spent on transportation of all forms.”
