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Lamont leaves tolls for special session
Mark Pazniokas
Gov. Ned Lamont conceded Tuesday that the 2019 session of the General Assembly will end June 5 without a vote on highway tolls, recasting his focus for the final weeks to delivering a budget that will provide a reliable fiscal blueprint for Connecticut for the next two years.
“My first priority is to get an honestly balanced budget done on time,” Lamont said. “That was a promise I made during that campaign. I heard from every superintendent of schools and mayors. ‘Even if I don’t get all the money I want, get it to me on time, so I can plan accordingly.’”
Lamont made his comments a day after meeting with legislative leaders, when it became clear to administration officials that a special session would offer the governor his best chance of convincing the General Assembly to accept a comprehensive system of highway tolls as the most reliable way finance overdue improvements to the state’s transportation infrastructure.
Later Tuesday, Lamont released a working draft of a tolls bill, An Act Concerning the Sustainability of Connecticut’s Transportation Infrastructure, that he intends to propose during the special session. In the bill, Lamont yields oversight of tolls to a Connecticut Transportation Commission composed of six lawmakers, six administration officials or appointees and the state treasurer. It would be considered a legislative agency.
The bill was the work of the administration and the co-chairs of the legislature’s Transportation Committee.
Lamont suggested Tuesday that his acceptance of a special session on tolls was a reaction in part to a suggestion by the Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, and House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, that the administration has yet to full articulate a schedule and budget of transportation improvements.
“If Len and Themis think they need a little more time to think about our transportation infrastructure, I’m willing to give them a little more time,” Lamont said. “We’re going to have [Transportation Commissioner] Joe Giulietti there. We’re going to open the doors, answer every question they’ve got. So, at least we can’t have them say ‘I can’t make my mind up because I don’t have enough information.’”
But the GOP minority is not his target for votes, nor his problem. With Republicans categorically opposed to a significant system of tolls, Lamont needs to win over 76 of 91 House Democrats and at least 18 of 22 Senate Democrats, the bare minimums necessary for passage.Republicans have offered to dedicate more of the state’s borrowing to transportation, an approach Lamont says will raise too little money while adding too much to the state’s indebtedness.
The governor is casting his plan to install tolls on the Merritt Parkway and Interstates 84, 91 and 95 as a crucial step toward economic growth, which he says is inextricably linked to an adequate system of highways and trains. The special session also would consider economic development measures.
“We’re stuck in an economic rut,” he said. “We haven’t added new jobs in a generation. Transportation is so key to our economic future, so don’t duck the vote.”
The bill released Tuesday would establish toll rates of 4.4 cents a mile for peak travel and 3.5 cents for off-peak, with authority for the Department of Transportation to vary the rates by 30 percent above or below the published rates to comply with any congestion-pricing agreement struck with the Federal Highway Administration.
Tolls are generally prohibited on interstates constructed or maintained with federal highway feds, but Connecticut is one of the states permitted to negotiate with the Federal Highway Administration over tolls aimed at reducing congestion with variable pricing, based on peak and an off-peak travel.
Pricing would be frozen for three years, then fall under the control of the Connecticut Transportation Commission. The bill requires discounts for state drivers and creates a mechanism for lowering fuel taxes, should fiscal conditions allow.
The measure lists nine projects that would have to be funded, including the replacement of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in New London, the I-84 viaduct in Hartford, improvements to I-95 and the reconstruction of various exits that are now chokepoints.
Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said the draft was a work in progress, subject to negotiation once the special session begins.Fasano said he was open to a special session, but he saw no circumstance in which Republicans would support tolls. “Bring everyone in? Who am I to say no,” Fasano said. “And then we go from there.”
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said he had the votes for some version of tolling, but not one acceptable to the Senate or governor. He declined to identify differences between the chambers or the governor.
Lamont laughed when asked about those differences, saying, “I never have any differences with the speaker.”
Tolls headed to special session as no deal likely to be reached
Dan Haar: Borrowing instead of tolling could cost $35 billion, or nothing
WASHINGTON (AP) ” Reality has set in during the three weeks since President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to work together on a $2 trillion package to invest in roads, bridges and broadband.
Republican leaders in Congress have shown little enthusiasm for the price tag, and even less for the idea of raising the federal fuel tax to help pay for upgrading the nation’s infrastructure. Trump himself has suggested that Democrats are somehow setting a trap to get him to go along with a tax increase.
Trump and Democratic lawmakers will meet at the White House on Wednesday for Round 2 of their infrastructure talks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after their last White House meeting in late April that there was a consensus on one aspect of infrastructure: The agreement would be big and bold. But funding is a different matter. Democrats emerged saying they would return to hear Trump’s suggestions on how to pay for infrastructure.
But Trump expressed wariness in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, saying he thought the White House was “being played by the Democrats a little bit. You know, I think what they want me to do is say, ‘Well, what we’ll do is raise taxes,’ and we’ll do this and this and this, and then they’ll have a news conference, see, ‘Trump wants to raise taxes.’”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dismissed the potential for a sweeping plan or for raising the gas tax at a recent Senate GOP lunch with Vice President Mike Pence, according to those familiar with the meeting.
And House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said that it was unrealistic to place the funding decision with the president. Democrats will need to make suggestions, too.
“You don’t ask the president, ‘Show me how to pay for it,’” Scalise said. “The president doesn’t pass the bill that pays for it. Ultimately, it has got to go through the House and Senate. We, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, have to come to an agreement, working with the White House, on how to pay for it. Those negotiations haven’t really started in earnest.”
The White House released a letter Tuesday night that Trump sent Pelosi and Schumer in advance of the meeting letting them know his preference for Congress taking up the proposed U.S. trade deal with Mexico and Canada before other issues.
“Once Congress has passed USMCA, we should turn our attention to a bipartisan infrastructure package,” Trump said.
“Your caucus has expressed a wide-range of priorities, and it is unclear which ones have your support,” he said.
Trump also complained that he had hoped to work out the priorities following a meeting in late April at the White House, “but you cancelled a scheduled meeting of our teams, preventing them from advancing our discussions. Nevertheless, I remain committed to passing an infrastructure bill.”
Shortly after the release of Trump’s letter, Pelosi and Schumer issued their own statement, promising to continue “to insist on our principles: that any plan we support be big, bold and bipartisan; that it be comprehensive, future-focused, green and resilient; and that it be a jobs and ownership-boost with strong Buy America, labor, and women, veteran and minority-owned business protections.”
Business and trade groups have been meeting with White House officials to emphasize the importance of shoring up the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road improvements and transit systems. Federal fuel taxes supply most of the money that goes into the trust fund, but the purchasing power of the gas tax has declined as vehicles have become more fuel efficient.
Some 30 states have enacted fuel tax increases to raise money for local roads and bridges over the past six years, but Congress has not approved a fuel tax increase since 1993. It now stands at 18.3 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.3 cents a gallon for diesel.
The advocacy groups are trying to make the case that state politicians supportive of gas tax increases have not been punished at the ballot box.
However, the White House has been reluctant to provide any details of what the president will support.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., introduced a bill Tuesday that would raise the fuels tax by 5 cents a year over five years and allow it to rise at the rate of inflation thereafter. It also would establish that Congress intends to replace the fuel tax with a more equitable, stable source of funding within 10 years. Blumenauer supports taxing vehicles ” including electric ones ” based on miles traveled.
“It is past time that we get real about funding our infrastructure needs,” Blumenauer said. “We can’t afford inaction any longer.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and the American Trucking Associations voiced support for Blumenauer’s bill. That’s a rare mix of support on a major issue before Congress.
But some conservative groups are urging Congress to resist any gas tax increases. The Charles Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity said lawmakers should streamline the permitting process for construction on highways and other infrastructure, a move that could alienate many Democratic lawmakers.
“Congress has money to improve roads and bridges. They just need to spend it smarter,” said Russ Latino, a vice president at Americans for Prosperity.