Transportation plan passes Senate, but not without cuts

The transportation proposal the Senate passed Friday includes:

It was neither pretty nor perfect, but the Senate managed Friday to set the final stage for negotiations to raise $1 billion for transportation improvements across Georgia

The 29-25 vote on House Bill 170 sends the legislation back to the House, albeit in much different shape than when the Senate got it. To win passage, leaders agreed to kill more than $201 million in fees they had proposed as part of their plan to fix the state's aging network of roads and bridges.

The ploy won over enough conservatives, but it created a pothole: The plan now raises about $850 million, short of the $1 billion a legislative study committee said the state needs to raise at a minimum in new money just to maintain the state's transportation system at its current level. And it also assumes future lawmakers would be generous enough to voluntarily budget some $250 million a year as part of that $850 million to pay off the state's borrowing costs, freeing up a matching amount toward new transportation projects.

"Raising revenue is supposed to be difficult," said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, who also supported one additional change to the bill aimed at appeasing conservative members: creating a joint legislative committee that later this year will review the state's tax code.

“We gave our members the right to vote their conscience,” Williams said. “We were happy with that. We didn’t try to pressure anybody about their votes. We laid out the facts.”

It worked, barely. The 29 yes votes were the bare minimum required to pass that or any bill in the Senate. All Democrats voted no, saying the plan would force lawmakers to divert cash from such things as schools and health care — other big-ticket priorities in addition to roads.

That opposition came despite the chamber’s GOP leaders’ efforts to woo Democrats with budget incentives, including scholarship money to recruit and train minority engineering students as well as credit help for any “disadvantaged small business contracting or attempting to contract” with the state Department of Transportation. Democrats in both chambers have complained that less than 3 percent of state DOT contracts go to African-American firms.

On Friday, however, several Republicans also raised objections, namely that the bill represented a tax increase.

"I believe our government ought to be fiscally responsible with the dollars it has without putting a fiscal burden on our families and businesses," said state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, who fought the bill on the floor through several failed amendments.

“The state’s procrastination” of not acting sooner, Albers added, “has become a taxpayer emergency.”

Overall, the Senate proposal aims to diversify how the state raises new money toward its ailing transportation network. Senate leaders believe a higher gas tax backed by the House would bring in less money over time as car builders continue to improve on fuel efficiency. That’s why they focused on user fees — including a $5 fee on car rentals.

They also kept several ideas suggested by the House. Those included the end of an aviation fuel tax break that helps Delta Air Lines and other air carriers, as well as the end of a tax credit for the purchase or lease of an electric car and the addition of fees for electric car drivers — something that has angered environmentalists.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, watched Friday's debate on the Senate floor, huddled with supporters of the bill as the debate lasted past two hours. His own efforts to get the bill passed earlier this month in the House had been worse, as conservative lawmakers in that body toyed with the bill for days until supporters finally beat back the challenges and passed it.

The House’s proposal, he said afterward, was a start. The Senate version — even with the changes — kept the effort moving forward, he said. The end goal, as he and others have acknowledged for days, was always to sit down at the end and hammer out a compromise by April 2, the expected end of the legislative session.

“At the end of the day, we can come to an agreement that hopefully both bodies can agree on,” Roberts said. “Anytime you have a tough vote like that today or the one we had in the House it’s always going to be a challenge to be sure everybody understands the legislation.”