Divided Virginia Senate Approves Transportation Overhaul
Sen. Janet Howell calls compromise — expected to raise $880 million a year for roads and mass transit —"truly the best we're going to get."
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By Stephen Nielsen, Capital News Service
A divided Virginia Senate on Saturday passed Gov. Bob McDonnell’s signature issue of the 2013 legislative session – a bill to overhaul the state’s system for funding transportation.
Just hours before the session’s end, the Senate voted 25-15 for House Bill 2313, which will raise about $880 million a year more for roads and mass transit by increasing sales taxes while lowering the fuels tax.
The debate over how to increase revenue continued right up until the vote.
Here's how Mount Vernon-area Senators voted:
Voting for it were: Sen. Toddy Puller (D-36th), Sen. Dave Marsden (D-37th), Sen. Mark Herring (D-33rd).
Voting against it was: Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-30th)
“This isn’t any bill. This is the only bill,” said Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment, R-Williamsburg. He said it’s the only way to provide the revenue Virginia’s transportation system needs – and to ease traffic congestion in Northern Virginia and Tidewater.
HB 2313, which was negotiated by a conference committee and approved 60-40 by the House on Friday, would:
- Eliminate the 17.5-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax that consumers pay at the pump. Instead, the state would impose a 3.5 percent tax on gasoline at the wholesale level. The wholesale tax on diesel fuel would be 6 percent.
- Increase Virginia’s sales tax from 5 percent to 5.3 percent.
- Raise the motor vehicle sales tax from 3 percent to 4.3 percent.
- Charge a $100 annual license tax for electric and alternative fuel vehicles.
- Allow a 0.7 percent sales tax increase in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia to fund transportation projects there.
HB 2313 also would boost the proportion of the state’s general fund revenue dedicated to transportation from 0.5 percent to 0.675 percent. And it would prohibit tolls on Interstate 95 south of Fredericksburg without approval from the General Assembly.
“This is truly the best we’re going to get,” Howell said.
Other senators echoed that sentiment.
“Do I feel like we have anyone in this body that can make a perfect plan? No,” Sen. Charles Carrico (R-Galax) said. But he said the transportation plan was close enough and a product of a great deal of compromise between parties.
Others disagreed.
“To me, the final bill represents bad economics and bad transportation policy,” said Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who believes the state should raise its gasoline tax to address the problems.
A dozen Republican senators and three Democrats voted against the bill.
“I don’t agree with having different tax rates in different parts of the commonwealth,” Petersen said.
“Having a regional tax in Northern Virginia – that means my constituents are going to have a surcharge on all their consumer goods, just for living in that one part of the state. I don’t see the fairness in that, so I voted no," Petersen said.
HB 2313 now goes to McDonnell for his signature.
In a press release, the governor said "the annals of history will recognize this session as the year that vital transportation funding reforms, substantively ignored since 1986, were enacted to address the decades-old issues that have left Virginia unable to maintain our existing road, rail and transit infrastructure and unable to pay for needed new transportation services.”
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How They Voted
Here is how the Senate voted Saturday on HB 2313 (“Revenues and appropriations of State; changes to revenues collected and distribution, report”).
Floor: 02/23/13 Senate: Conference report agreed to by Senate (25-Y 15-N)
YEAS – Alexander, Barker, Blevins, Carrico, Colgan, Deeds, Edwards, Favola, Herring, Howell, Locke, Lucas, Marsden, McEachin, McWaters, Miller, Norment, Northam, Puckett, Puller, Ruff, Saslaw, Stosch, Wagner, Watkins – 25.
NAYS – Black, Ebbin, Garrett, Hanger, Marsh, Martin, McDougle, Newman, Obenshain, Petersen, Reeves, Smith, Stanley, Stuart, Vogel – 15.
T Ailshire
8:06 am on Monday, February 25, 2013
Unfortunately, in a piece of intellectual dishonesty, Senator Ebbin and Delegate Surovell are (apparently) only to the provision that would levy a tax on hybrid owners.
Hybrids pay less in gas tax, as one would expect as they use less gas, but they use the roads just as much as any other vehicle. The argument that there are conventional vehicles that get better MPG is partially valid in that those vehicles ALSO use the roads as much. However, if you really want to admit that transportation funds are primarily for road maintenance and congestion, you MUST admit that hybrids are no less a factor, and thus should be taxed equally. This is NOT a penalty; it is an equalizer.
That said, the entire plan stinks (at least what we little people have been able to see of it) and should not have been passed. The governor is crowing as if it were still his (bad) plan; some legislators are crowing about how it's their (bad) plan now and not his, but they're crowing over a BAD plan.
Martin Tillett
11:14 am on Monday, February 25, 2013
Agreed that it is a bad plan for many reasons, however, hybrids may consume less fuel and use the roads as much as other vehicles consuming more fuel but the virtue of hybrids is that they contribute less to air pollution and lessen dependence on foreign oil and help families economize. Environmental quality counts as should less dependence of foreign fuel and having control over the family budget. Incentives for owning and operating such vehicles should remain. I see the State as taking punitive actions against those that want a better quality environment, want to economize and live within their means, and want less dependence on foreign oil imports.
T Ailshire
12:23 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
Martin, your argument that hybrids are better for the air, but our transportation dollars fund road construction, maintenance, and improvement. These things are independent of air quality.
While I won't argue against cleaner air, such argument is irrelevant to a discussion on how to improve roads and congestion, and to pretend otherwise is purely to muddy the discussion. It's a common tactic - conflate two arguments, where one is a given - but dishonest.
Martin Tillett
4:17 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
Isn't funding roads with our transportation dollars, under current practices a contributing cause to poor air quality in that concrete production is a business that produces more than 5% of the earth’s carbon dioxide emissions? Cement is among the most energy-intensive materials used in the road construction industry and a major contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere. It is fair to suggest that funding transportation in VA has a link to air quality. That is one of many bad reasons behind the plan. Funding to build more roads never solves the problem of gridlock or improving air quality. More roads leads to sprawl thus leading to the need for more roads. The beltway, I 270, & I 95 exemplify the point. If the bulk of the funding were targeting alternatives to automobile transportation such as heavy & light rail, rapid transit system infrastructure and improvement of older roads that were built in such a way that they are destructive to local watersheds, then that would be a plan I could support and would willingly pay the higher fees & taxes regardless of the vehicle I own and operate. Unfortunately, VDOT will continue on a course of trying to build our way out of the gridlock we created using the same logic for getting us into our current state of affairs. Why pick on hybrid vehicle owners getting 40 - 50 mpg. Why not add motorcycles into the area of extra fees for getting better gas mileage like hybrids and thus contributing fewer transportation dollars?