Christopher Keating
After many postponements and squabbling, lawmakers now have a new date for a vote on tolls - the week of February 10. Gov. Ned Lamont said Friday that he is moving ahead on the issue, and Democrats say that they have the votes to pass the latest plan that calls for trucks-only tolls on 12 bridges on six highways from Greenwich to Groton. Lamont declined to assess blame on his own administration or anyone else for the constant delays. "I think it’s just politically difficult,'' Lamont told reporters outside his Capitol office. "I’m asking people: how are you going to pay to fix the crumbling roads and bridges? How are you going to speed up the rail? We and the Republicans at least agree on the scope of the problem. We generally agree on what it costs to fix. My job here as governor is to make sure we act and get it right.''
Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney said that both chambers are expected to vote during the week of February 10 on an emergency-certified bill that would not need a vote from the legislature’s transportation committee. The two chambers have still not reached an agreement on which chamber will vote first - due to questions about the vote count.
House members have expressed skepticism that the Senate actually has the necessary votes to pass the bill. As such, the House members want the Senate to vote first so that the House does not take a politically risky vote in an election year.
As of Friday, top lawmakers still haven’t reached an agreement. "That remains to be determined,'' Looney told reporters. "We caucused on the basis that the House would go first.'' Looney said flatly that he has the necessary minimum of 18 votes in the Senate to pass tolls. Ritter, though, declined to release a precise number for the vote count. When asked how many votes he has in the House, Ritter said, "We will be over where we need to be.''Ritter reiterated his point that guaranteeing attendance in the chambers is difficult during the off-session because legislators set their plans based on the dates of the 2020 session that runs from February 5 through May 6. A special session scheduled for next week has been postponed. "Some people just weren’t available in our caucus,'' Ritter said. "That’s not a conspiracy. People do have lives, and they have plans.''
Democrats promise passage of truck tolls
Mark Pazniokas and Keith M. Phaneuf
Senate and House Democratic leaders said Friday afternoon the General Assembly will vote on a tractor-trailer tolls bill the week of Feb. 10, though they have not resolved a small detail that loomed large Thursday night when they cancelled a special session slated for next week: Which chamber will vote first?
“That remains to be determined,” said Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney of New Haven.
Looney and House Majority Leader Matt Ritter of Hartford told reporters outside the governor’s office in the State Capitol they had just assured Gov. Ned Lamont that his signature first-year issue is back on track, while hundreds of opponents and supporters lined up in the Legislative Office Building to testify on the bill at a public hearing.
The annual 2020 legislative session opens Wednesday, and a vote on the transportation financing bill so early in the session would require Looney and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz of Berlin to deem it an emergency-certified bill, a status that exempts the measure from further review by legislative committees or another public hearing.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, and Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said the Democrats are intent on finding a process that minimizes public vetting of the legislation before a full traffic and fiscal analysis can be completed.
“This is beyond irresponsible,” Fasano said. “How dare you?”
Looney and Ritter said they had votes for passage, and both tried to minimize the obvious question raised by the inability to quickly determine where the bill would come to its first floor vote: The obvious distrust between the chambers, each controlled by Democrats.
Asked if he trusted Ritter and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz of Berlin, Looney said, “I do.”
Ritter, who stood next to Looney outside the governor’s office after a half-hour meeting, said the issue is less with leadership than some rank-and-file members. “Sometimes,” Ritter said, “there’s distrust issues between the House and Senate.”“I think it’s just there are elements of both caucuses who want their votes to be final action,” Looney said.
Lamont shook off the previous night’s cancellation, saying his fellow Democrats assured him they had sufficient votes, and the only challenge was to find a day when every lawmaker supporting the measure would be available. Democrats have solid majorities of 22-14 in the Senate and 91-60 in the House, but every Republican is opposed.
Democrats can survive the loss of four Democratic votes in the Senate and achieve an 18-18 tie that would be broken by Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz. In the House, they need to keep 76 of their 91 members on board.
“I feel as confident today as I did yesterday, as I did the day before that,” Lamont said. “I just met with the leaders and had a good discussion about scheduling, when we can do this.”
The bill, which is available on line, would authorize the state to charge tolls on tractor trailers at 12 highway bridges.
The opening hours of the hearing Friday were consumed by questioning of the governor’s top fiscal official, Secretary Melissa McCaw of the Office of Policy and Management, and the state transportation commissioner, Joseph J. Giulietti
Administration officials warned that if lawmakers fail to find new revenues for infrastructure before the next recession — or before the transportation program falls into deficit in five years — Connecticut’s economy stands to lose tens of billions of dollars.
“The Special Transportation Fund is in crisis,” McCaw told the legislature’s Transportation Committee at Friday’s hearing. “It needs a suitable, reliable revenue stream. The current situation is untenable.”The fund is financed by fuel taxes and various fees, and it pays for debt service on transportation bonding and the operating costs of the Department of Transportation and Department of Motor Vehicles. Between state borrowing and matching federal grants, Connecticut spends about $1.6 billion per year on highway, bridge and rail repairs.
The $19.1 billion investment Lamont is supporting for the coming decade “will be transformative for our economy,” Giulietti testified.
About $172 million in annual toll receipts, coupled with additional sales tax revenues dedicated to transportation, would prop up the Special Transportation Fund.
The plan crafted by Lamont and Democratic legislators would take advantage of low-interest federal financing, with interest rates close to 2%, to minimize borrowing costs over the coming decade.
“These are very, very aggressive rates,” Giulietti said. “The best we’ve ever seen.”
Economic studies have shown Connecticut’s congested highways and rail lines cost businesses and residents a collective $4.2 billion to $5 billion annually in delays and other complications, McCaw said, adding it’s a price the state has been paying for years.
The Metro-North commuter rail system has slower running times than 50 years ago, said Giulietti, the former president of Metro-North.
The STF’s longtime revenue sources — fuel tax revenues and various motor vehicle fees — are growing at less than 3% per year while transportation costs are growing by 4%, McCaw said. If toll receipts or some other revenues aren’t added to transportation, the STF would fall into deficit by 2025, she said.
“Major bridge work” is needed at all 12 of the highway structures where toll gantries would be located under the plan, Giulietti said. The tolls would go into effect in 2023.
Republican legislative leaders pushed back Friday against the Democratic governor’s plan, calling it a first step to a broader tolls plan, though that would require the passage of a second transportation bill, most likely after 2023 and requiring a legislative consensus that now seems unfathomable.
“It may be trucks today, but we all know it will be cars tomorrow,” said Patrick Sasser, founder of No Tolls CT, who said the need for tolls is decades of fiscal management of state finances. “Sadly, the trust is broken and we have had enough.”
Democrats have tried to underline that passenger tolls are permanently off the table by proposing bond language barring them.
But Klarides said such language would be worthless: Wall Street never would try to enforce them, since investors in bonds want only one thing: “They want to be paid.”
Rep. Laura Devlin, R-Fairfield, noted that the 2007 legislature approved about $2 billion in bonding to shore up the teachers’ pension fund, pledging in that bond covenant not to alter the schedule of contributions to the pension system until those bonds were paid off, around 2032.
The language was not binding, she said. Last May, lawmakers approved a proposal from Lamont and state Treasurer Shawn Wooden to restructure pension payments. The governor and treasurer asserted this would not violate the bond covenant as long as Connecticut set aside an amount equal to the maximum yearly debt payment on the bonds, about $380 million. Connecticut, which had $1.2 billion in its rainy day fund last May — and was on its way to amassing $2.5 billion by September 30 — had no problem fulfilling that $380 million reserve requirement.
The Lamont administration projects that at least 50% of the truck tolls receipts would be paid by out-of-state truck drivers, a factor that Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said should be persuasive.
“It’s like going to the store, seeing a 50% discount, and saying, ‘No, I would rather pay full price,” Bronin said. “The bottom line is we have to make investments now. They have to be big. It is our only chance to be competitive.”
But Kurt Lindeland, who runs Connecticut Mulch Distributors in Enfield, said plenty of Connecticut companies will pay a high price, his among them.
“We’re estimating $400,000 to $700,000,” Lindeland said, “And that’s a pretty scary number.”
The administration tried to minimize the impact on Connecticut businesses by exempting all classes of trucks other than tractor trailers, and no truck would be charged more than once a day at any one gantry.
After a 40-minute meeting with Gov. Ned Lamont in the Capitol, while a public hearing on highway tolls raged next door in the Legislative Office Building, House Majority Leader Matt Ritter and Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney told reporters that they have the votes to pass the thorniest part of the governor’s 10-year, $19.8 billion transportation
Looney and Ritter said the meeting was about simple scheduling of the vote, but they admitted that it remains to be determined which of the legislative chambers debates and votes on the issue first.
Ritter said that one concern that led to the cancellation of a planned special session on the issue next Monday and Tuesday, was the possibility of debate running into the start of the next regular legislative session on Wednesday Feb 5.
“There were anticipated threats of a Republican filibuster that would have potentially dragged on on the 4th that would actually bleed into Opening Day,” Looney said.
There is tension between House and Senate leaders over which chamber should go first. “It is true that people are always sort of pointing fingers and playing the counting game,” Ritter conceded. “From a leadership perspective that has not filtered into our relationship at all.”
“We have the votes,” Looney said. “Many members of our caucus when we did caucus we were under the assumption that since the proposal was originally advanced by the House...that the assumption was the House would go first. There are elements of both caucuses who want their vote to be final action.”
“I feel as confident today as I did yesterday and the day before that,” Lamont told a handful of reporters outside his office. “I think the House and the Senate keep looking at each other but they both feel very confident that they’ve got the votes.”
The tolling would bring in a projected $175 million a year, all of it from heavy, mostly interstate trucks.
The scheduling agreement came less than a full day after a special session vote planned for next week was abruptly cancelled amid rancor in the ranks of Democrats.
Meanwhile about 300 people on both sides of the issue descended on the Legislative Office Building for a public hearing on the issue that started in the early afternoon and was expected to continue through the night.
At about 11:30 a.m., after toll opponents and Republicans enjoyed a victory lap in a news conference, pro-toll and anti-toll factions squared off in a loud, raucous but peaceful shouting contest in the cavernous atrium of the office building, under the surveillance of Capitol Police. No incidents were reported.
When asked about the potential for a filibuster on the issue, Klarides said that her 60-member minority caucus is passionately opposed to tolls.
While the public hearing started at 1 o’clock, the Transportation Committee’s questions of officials including DOT Commisssioner Joseph Giulietti delayed comment from the public until after 4 p.m.
With all Republican Senators vowing to vote against tolls, the CT Mirror reached out to the seven Democrats whose votes are considered vulnerable. The Senate Democratic caucus can spare just four votes and still win passage.
Here’s what the Democratic senators we spoke with said (and who couldn’t be reached Friday) …Sen. Alex Bergstein – Opposes current ‘watered-down’ bill
The first legislator to call for tolls in 2019, Bergstein said Friday she opposes the current bill because it is not comprehensive. Bergstein, a Greenwich resident serving her first term in office, called the measure “watered-down” because it only tolls large trucks. She also objects to a provision that attempts to block future legislatures from adding tolls on cars.
Sen. Norm Needleman – ‘Leaning towards no’Needleman, who represents Essex, said he hasn’t firmly decided, but raised several concerns.
“I honestly haven’t made up my mind. I am leaning towards no because I am not enthusiastic about the process. I think that this one-day-before-session [vote] is not the best optics. On the other hand we’ve got to figure out what to do with transportation. I am not a huge fan of borrowing” to pay for transportation repairs and upgrades, he said.
Sen. Julie Kushner – No
The freshman senator from Danbury said Friday she remains opposed to tolls, just as she was during the 2018 election.
“My position has not changed,” she said.
Sen. Joan Hartley – ‘Serious concerns’
Hartley, a moderate Democrat who represents Waterbury and the surrounding towns, said she is not happy that three of the 12 proposed tolling locations would be located in Waterbury, just outside the city.
“I would say that’s a little disproportionate,” she said. “The truth is if we want to have this conversation that is about me — and Waterbury, my district, my constituents — we have to start from a place that is equitable. That is not equitable. By the way, this is a very small state. Take a look. Really?”
She added “There are serious concerns” because the revenue generated by tolls has gone down with the reduction of tolling gantries, and she has not seen what projects the reduced revenue would fund.
Sen. Mae Flexer – Declined to comment
Flexer, a Killingly resident, declined to say Friday how she would vote or share her thoughts about the current proposal.
Sen. James Maroney – Yes
Asked how he would vote, the Milford Democrat said he is a “Yes.”
Democrats put off vote on toll plan; transportation proposal on track despite delay
PAUL HUGHES
HARTFORD — Uncertainty abounded Friday amid growing doubts about Democratic support for the latest plan for 12 truck-only bridge tolls after Democratic majority leaders put off expected House and Senate votes on the proposal.
Supporters and opponents of highway tolls were left wondering what would become of the working draft of the tolling bill that was the subject of a much anticipated Transportation Committee hearing on Friday.
Senate President Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, insisted that despite the delay that Democrats remain on track to approve the legislation after meeting Friday afternoon with Gov. Ned Lamont.
“We’re going to vote on it, we’re going to pass it, and we are going to say we fixed our transportation system for the foreseeable future,” Lamont said.
Ritter and Looney said the House and Senate votes are now anticipated for the week of Feb. 10.
THE GAME PLAN going into the hearing Friday had been to put a final version of tolling bill to House and Senate votes either Monday or Tuesday ahead of the start Wednesday of the regular 2020 legislative session. Then, the anticipated special sessions were called off Thursday.
Democratic leaders were unable to agree whether the House or Senate would vote first – and potentially put their caucus members on the spot in an election year if the second chamber comes up short. The question of the voting order remained unresolved Friday.
Toll supporter Nate Brown was dubious Friday that legislators would be voting on a tolling bill at all. He is the business and government relations representative for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 478.
“I believe it is very possible because they are afraid to make a hard choice They know it is an election year, and they know it is a very contentious issue, and they don’t want to do it,” Brown said.
Dave Roche, president of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council, was feeling uneasy, too. The council’s member unions represent approximately 30,000 construction workers.
“I still think we’ve got a good chance. I think it is just a smart move on their part to hold off and live to fight another day,” Roche said. “Hopefully, it happens sooner rather than later in the session. I still think it is the right move, and it is going to get passed.”
Patrick Sasser, the founder of No Tolls CT, a grassroots opposition group, questioned if Connecticut is witnessing Democratic support for the 12 truck-only bridge tolls crumbling. He said the anti-toll movement is not going to give up, or go away until tolls are defeated once and for all.
REPUBLICAN LEADERS doubted the Democratic leadership’s claims that they had the necessary votes to pass the tolling bill.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, and Senate Minority Leonard A. Fasano, R-North Haven, said that is why the planned special sessions were postponed, and that is also why House and Senate Democrats are hesitant to be the first majority caucus to vote on the tolling plan.
“The reason the Senate and the House are fighting over who is going to call it first is that neither one of them trusts the other one to have the votes,” Klarides said.
Ritter and Looney said Democratic leaders trust each other’s representations and vote counts, but acknowledged members of both caucuses are not always as trusting.
“People are always pointing fingers and playing the counting game,” Ritter said.
Looney said Democratic lawmakers also want to make sure their vote is the only one they have to cast to authorize tolls.
Lamont said he is as confident as he can be that truck-only tolls will be approved.
“I think it is just politically difficult,” he said.
THE HEARING FRIDAY drew a crowd of several hundred to the state Capitol, and three overflow rooms had been set aside because every seat in the hearing room was full.
Melissa McCaw, the state budget director, and Joseph Giulietti, the state commissioner of transportation, presented the Lamont administration’s case and fielded questions for more than three hours.
The two top cabinet officials testified that the legislation limits the tolls to heavy commercial truck and the 12 specified locations. Any moves to expand the reach of tolls or add more locations would require the legislature’s approval.
Republicans and toll opponents argued approval of this tolling plan will lead to cars and all trucks being tolled and more tolls despite provisions intended to limit tolls to heavy trucks only.
“Car tolls are clearly next,” said Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, the ranking Senate member of the Transportation Committee.
McCaw said the 12 truck-only bridge tolls are expected to raise $172 million in net revenue. This is funding the state will use to secure low-interest federal loans to help finance the 12 bridge improvement projects.
McCaw reiterated the administration’s argument that tolls are needed to provide reliable source of revenue for the Special Transportation Fund.
Without the truck-only tolls, she said the transportation fund is going to start running operating deficits in 2025. The unchecked shortfall will grow from over five years from $47.7 million to $336.4 million.
“The current situation is untenable,” said McCaw, the secretary of the Office of Policy and Management.
Testimony continued into the night Friday.
Democratic Leaders, Lamont Reschedule Truck-Only Toll Vote For Week of Feb. 10
Christine Stuart
HARTFORD, CT – Toll opponents gathered Friday at the Legislative Office Building in a celebratory mood following the cancelation of a special session on truck-only tolls.
The special session on Feb. 3 and 4 was canceled, but Democratic legislative leaders met mid-afternoon with Gov. Ned Lamont to reschedule a vote on the issue. “I feel as confident today as a felt yesterday,” Lamont said. “... We’ve got a vote scheduled for the week of the 10th and we’re going to get that done.”
Aside from the toll opponents, there were quite a few toll supporters in the building on Friday as well.
Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, confirmed they plan to hold a vote the week of Feb. 10. However, they still haven’t decided whether the House or the Senate would start debate on the bill.
House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said the public hearing is neither insignificant nor irrelevant.
“They really do want to hear what people say,” Ritter said of his members.
He maintained that his caucus has enough votes to pass it, and it’s simply a scheduling issue.
Looney said they have the 18 votes in his caucus for the legislation, but when they discussed it in private his members were under the assumption that the House would pass it first since the proposal was initially advanced by the House.
“We caucused on the basis that the House would go first,” Looney said.
And there are members of both caucuses “who want their vote to be final action,” Looney added.
Ritter said the “trust-building measures” they are taking to give their members confidence to vote for this bill are confidential.
Before the days-long public hearing, opponents joined Republican Senate Leader Len Fasano and House Minority Leader Themis Klarides for a press conference where they expressed their belief that Democratic lawmakers don’t have the votes to pass it.
“This is a bill about tolling trucks at 12 locations. It’s not much more,” Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, said in opening up the public hearing.
Earlier this week, Fasano pointed out that the draft language of the proposal would allow tolls to apply to all vehicles by a simple majority vote of the General Assembly.
Looney has said there’s no desire among lawmakers to expand tolling to all passenger vehicles.
“There’s broad-based opposition to passenger tolls,” Looney said.He said there are contingencies written into the legislation “but that’s nothing I foresee happening. The level of opposition to passenger tolls is so strong that I see that as being a very remote, almost impossible situation to arise since there is such significant opposition to passenger tolls in all four caucuses.”
Fasano has put forward a no-toll alternative, which has been panned by Democrats because it uses part of the Rainy Day Fund.
Democrats are “going to reject any proposal that doesn’t have tolls, and we’re going to reject any proposal that is tolls,” Fasano said.
It’s unclear how they get past the partisan divide and make both Republicans and Gov. Ned Lamont a winner in an election year.
Republicans Were Going To Filibuster
Klarides said she wasn’t going to restrain any of her members who wanted to talk about the bill.
“They want what’s best for this state and that’s going to take a long time to talk about,” Klarides said.
She said there was no threat of a lengthy discussion. She thinks Democratic legislative leaders probably figured that out on their own.
“I would have to physically restrain people if I told them they were not allowed to speak,” she added. “I would never do that.”
That being said Democrats aren’t afraid of a long debate when they have the votes. Klarides pointed to 14-hour and 12-hour debates to pass Paid Family and Medical Leave and an increase in the minimum wage.
“You know what the common denominator was with all those things are? They had the votes,” Klarides said.
Fasano said Democrats are going to blame everyone “for their inability to muster up the votes for a bad bill. Their people don’t want to vote for a bad bill. Period.”
Ritter said he’s confident they will have the votes.
Hartley, a moderate Democrat who represents Waterbury and the surrounding towns, said she is not happy that three of the 12 proposed tolling locations would be located in Waterbury, just outside the city.
“I would say that’s a little disproportionate,” she said. “The truth is if we want to have this conversation that is about me — and Waterbury, my district, my constituents — we have to start from a place that is equitable. That is not equitable. By the way, this is a very small state. Take a look. Really?”
She added “There are serious concerns” because the revenue generated by tolls has gone down with the reduction of tolling gantries, and she has not seen what projects the reduced revenue would fund.
Sen. Mae Flexer – Declined to comment
Flexer, a Killingly resident, declined to say Friday how she would vote or share her thoughts about the current proposal.
Sen. James Maroney – Yes
Asked how he would vote, the Milford Democrat said he is a “Yes.”
“We’ve been paying for these roads all ourselves. And I’ve also been paying for New York’s roads, Massachusetts’ roads and New Jersey’s roads, and so it’s time to stop the people getting a free ride through our state,” he
Sen. Christine Cohen – Unknown
Cohen, of Guilford, could not be reached Friday. She is currently out of the country.Democrats put off vote on toll plan; transportation proposal on track despite delay
PAUL HUGHES
HARTFORD — Uncertainty abounded Friday amid growing doubts about Democratic support for the latest plan for 12 truck-only bridge tolls after Democratic majority leaders put off expected House and Senate votes on the proposal.
Supporters and opponents of highway tolls were left wondering what would become of the working draft of the tolling bill that was the subject of a much anticipated Transportation Committee hearing on Friday.
Senate President Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, insisted that despite the delay that Democrats remain on track to approve the legislation after meeting Friday afternoon with Gov. Ned Lamont.
“We’re going to vote on it, we’re going to pass it, and we are going to say we fixed our transportation system for the foreseeable future,” Lamont said.
Ritter and Looney said the House and Senate votes are now anticipated for the week of Feb. 10.
THE GAME PLAN going into the hearing Friday had been to put a final version of tolling bill to House and Senate votes either Monday or Tuesday ahead of the start Wednesday of the regular 2020 legislative session. Then, the anticipated special sessions were called off Thursday.
Democratic leaders were unable to agree whether the House or Senate would vote first – and potentially put their caucus members on the spot in an election year if the second chamber comes up short. The question of the voting order remained unresolved Friday.
“I think we both have the votes, and we’ll resolve who goes first. We have the votes,” Looney said.
THE DISAGREEMENT on the order of voting and the postponement of the special session votes invited speculation that Democratic support for the limited truck-only tolls is faltering.Toll supporter Nate Brown was dubious Friday that legislators would be voting on a tolling bill at all. He is the business and government relations representative for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 478.
“I believe it is very possible because they are afraid to make a hard choice They know it is an election year, and they know it is a very contentious issue, and they don’t want to do it,” Brown said.
Dave Roche, president of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council, was feeling uneasy, too. The council’s member unions represent approximately 30,000 construction workers.
“I still think we’ve got a good chance. I think it is just a smart move on their part to hold off and live to fight another day,” Roche said. “Hopefully, it happens sooner rather than later in the session. I still think it is the right move, and it is going to get passed.”
Patrick Sasser, the founder of No Tolls CT, a grassroots opposition group, questioned if Connecticut is witnessing Democratic support for the 12 truck-only bridge tolls crumbling. He said the anti-toll movement is not going to give up, or go away until tolls are defeated once and for all.
REPUBLICAN LEADERS doubted the Democratic leadership’s claims that they had the necessary votes to pass the tolling bill.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, and Senate Minority Leonard A. Fasano, R-North Haven, said that is why the planned special sessions were postponed, and that is also why House and Senate Democrats are hesitant to be the first majority caucus to vote on the tolling plan.
“The reason the Senate and the House are fighting over who is going to call it first is that neither one of them trusts the other one to have the votes,” Klarides said.
Ritter and Looney said Democratic leaders trust each other’s representations and vote counts, but acknowledged members of both caucuses are not always as trusting.
“People are always pointing fingers and playing the counting game,” Ritter said.
Looney said Democratic lawmakers also want to make sure their vote is the only one they have to cast to authorize tolls.
Lamont said he is as confident as he can be that truck-only tolls will be approved.
“I think it is just politically difficult,” he said.
THE HEARING FRIDAY drew a crowd of several hundred to the state Capitol, and three overflow rooms had been set aside because every seat in the hearing room was full.
Melissa McCaw, the state budget director, and Joseph Giulietti, the state commissioner of transportation, presented the Lamont administration’s case and fielded questions for more than three hours.
The two top cabinet officials testified that the legislation limits the tolls to heavy commercial truck and the 12 specified locations. Any moves to expand the reach of tolls or add more locations would require the legislature’s approval.
Republicans and toll opponents argued approval of this tolling plan will lead to cars and all trucks being tolled and more tolls despite provisions intended to limit tolls to heavy trucks only.
“Car tolls are clearly next,” said Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, the ranking Senate member of the Transportation Committee.
McCaw said the 12 truck-only bridge tolls are expected to raise $172 million in net revenue. This is funding the state will use to secure low-interest federal loans to help finance the 12 bridge improvement projects.
McCaw reiterated the administration’s argument that tolls are needed to provide reliable source of revenue for the Special Transportation Fund.
Without the truck-only tolls, she said the transportation fund is going to start running operating deficits in 2025. The unchecked shortfall will grow from over five years from $47.7 million to $336.4 million.
“The current situation is untenable,” said McCaw, the secretary of the Office of Policy and Management.
Testimony continued into the night Friday.
Democratic Leaders, Lamont Reschedule Truck-Only Toll Vote For Week of Feb. 10
Christine Stuart
HARTFORD, CT – Toll opponents gathered Friday at the Legislative Office Building in a celebratory mood following the cancelation of a special session on truck-only tolls.
The special session on Feb. 3 and 4 was canceled, but Democratic legislative leaders met mid-afternoon with Gov. Ned Lamont to reschedule a vote on the issue. “I feel as confident today as a felt yesterday,” Lamont said. “... We’ve got a vote scheduled for the week of the 10th and we’re going to get that done.”
Aside from the toll opponents, there were quite a few toll supporters in the building on Friday as well.
Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, confirmed they plan to hold a vote the week of Feb. 10. However, they still haven’t decided whether the House or the Senate would start debate on the bill.
House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said the public hearing is neither insignificant nor irrelevant.
“They really do want to hear what people say,” Ritter said of his members.
He maintained that his caucus has enough votes to pass it, and it’s simply a scheduling issue.
Looney said they have the 18 votes in his caucus for the legislation, but when they discussed it in private his members were under the assumption that the House would pass it first since the proposal was initially advanced by the House.
“We caucused on the basis that the House would go first,” Looney said.
And there are members of both caucuses “who want their vote to be final action,” Looney added.
Ritter said the “trust-building measures” they are taking to give their members confidence to vote for this bill are confidential.
Before the days-long public hearing, opponents joined Republican Senate Leader Len Fasano and House Minority Leader Themis Klarides for a press conference where they expressed their belief that Democratic lawmakers don’t have the votes to pass it.
“This is a bill about tolling trucks at 12 locations. It’s not much more,” Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, said in opening up the public hearing.
Earlier this week, Fasano pointed out that the draft language of the proposal would allow tolls to apply to all vehicles by a simple majority vote of the General Assembly.
Looney has said there’s no desire among lawmakers to expand tolling to all passenger vehicles.
“There’s broad-based opposition to passenger tolls,” Looney said.He said there are contingencies written into the legislation “but that’s nothing I foresee happening. The level of opposition to passenger tolls is so strong that I see that as being a very remote, almost impossible situation to arise since there is such significant opposition to passenger tolls in all four caucuses.”
Fasano said the Democrats have a majority in both chambers so if they wanted to vote on legislation then they should call a vote, but instead they are arguing over whether the House or the Senate should go first.
“If they believe this is the right thing to do they are entitled to pass and we can’t do anything about it,” Fasano said.Fasano has put forward a no-toll alternative, which has been panned by Democrats because it uses part of the Rainy Day Fund.
Democrats are “going to reject any proposal that doesn’t have tolls, and we’re going to reject any proposal that is tolls,” Fasano said.
It’s unclear how they get past the partisan divide and make both Republicans and Gov. Ned Lamont a winner in an election year.
Republicans Were Going To Filibuster
Klarides said she wasn’t going to restrain any of her members who wanted to talk about the bill.
“They want what’s best for this state and that’s going to take a long time to talk about,” Klarides said.
She said there was no threat of a lengthy discussion. She thinks Democratic legislative leaders probably figured that out on their own.
“I would have to physically restrain people if I told them they were not allowed to speak,” she added. “I would never do that.”
That being said Democrats aren’t afraid of a long debate when they have the votes. Klarides pointed to 14-hour and 12-hour debates to pass Paid Family and Medical Leave and an increase in the minimum wage.
“You know what the common denominator was with all those things are? They had the votes,” Klarides said.
Fasano said Democrats are going to blame everyone “for their inability to muster up the votes for a bad bill. Their people don’t want to vote for a bad bill. Period.”
Ritter said he’s confident they will have the votes.
6 arguments for and against tolls from Capitol public hearing
Daniela Altimari
Few recent policy debates in Connecticut have been more divisive that tolls.
On Friday, the legislature’s transportation committee held a long and often contentious public hearing on Gov. Ned Lamont’s latest transportation plan. Under the proposal, the state would collect tolls from tractor-trailer trucks traveling on the state’s highways at 12 electronic gantries.
Several hundred people on both sides of the divide came to the Legislative Office Building. Some brought handmade signs declaring “No Tolls,” while others wore stickers that identified them as toll supporters. A vote on truck-only tolls had been planned for next week, but that has been delayed to the week of Feb. 10. Democratic leaders said the vote was pushed back due to scheduling issues, not because of a lack of support. “Some people just weren’t available in our caucus,” House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said. “That’s not a conspiracy. People do have lives, and they have plans.”Below are some of the arguments supporters and critics put forth at Friday’s hearing:
The price of consumer goods will rise if trucks are tolled Opponents say the cost of truck-only tolls will ultimately be born by Connecticut consumers. “It’s going to be passed along to the rest of us,” J.R. Heyel, a lawyer from Danbury, said as he waited outside the hearing room. “Your Starbucks coffee, your grocery store bill ... they’ll go up in price. The truck companies aren’t going to pay, we are." Susan Demers of Enfield agreed. “Practically everything we purchase is brought in by trucks,” she said. “The cost of living will go up for everybody in the state. Of course, wages don’t go up as fast as the cost of living goes up, so we’re struggling as a working class family.” The state needs a reliable revenue stream to fund transportation
The price of consumer goods will rise if trucks are tolled Opponents say the cost of truck-only tolls will ultimately be born by Connecticut consumers. “It’s going to be passed along to the rest of us,” J.R. Heyel, a lawyer from Danbury, said as he waited outside the hearing room. “Your Starbucks coffee, your grocery store bill ... they’ll go up in price. The truck companies aren’t going to pay, we are." Susan Demers of Enfield agreed. “Practically everything we purchase is brought in by trucks,” she said. “The cost of living will go up for everybody in the state. Of course, wages don’t go up as fast as the cost of living goes up, so we’re struggling as a working class family.” The state needs a reliable revenue stream to fund transportation
Supporters say tolls are needed to provide a reliable funding source to maintain and repair the state’s aging roads and bridges. Currently the state pays for highway infrastructure through a combination of transportation-related taxes on gasoline, licenses and fines. But over the next decade, the state projects the growth in expenses will exceed the growth in revenue. “Let me be clear: With current trends, the [Special Transportation Fund] will be in deficit starting in the fiscal year 2025,” Melissa McCaw, the governor’s budget director, told the transportation committee.
Tolls, McCaw and other supporters said, will help fill that gap.
Truck-only tolls are just the beginning
Tolls, McCaw and other supporters said, will help fill that gap.
Truck-only tolls are just the beginning
Several critics expressed skepticism that the legislature would limit tolls to trucks.