Heading into the fall of 2014, before oil prices dropped, the Common Core education standards reignited a controversial debate and the proverbial wheels completely fell off of the state budget, transportation advocates were driving with momentum.
While things have certainly changed since then, the focus on roads and highways remains, at least among the advocates.
Early recommendations from the Transportation Funding Task Force steered clear of tax hikes, but they’re very much a part of the conversation for some influencers heading toward the session that convenes on April 13, as are fees.
In particular, several attention-grabbing bills are being plotted by the transportation chairs. Special interests, like the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, will have their own transportation agendas as well, which is evidence that there’s no big detour for the issue.
Also on the agenda in the coming session is a followup on an ambitious proposal to reorganize the Department of Transportation and Development, with an eye on making sure it works only on building roads, maintaining bridges and other transportation priorities. Stakeholders say a compromise has been reached and includes a new focus on intercity passenger rail.
The read on the issue right now is that a few bold moves could be made this year, but the overarching goal may be more about planting seeds for the next governor and Legislature.
The chairs chase solutions
The two chairs over the House and Senate transportation committees will be the guiding lights for any real reforms this year and both sound unwilling to allow their priorities to become background noise in an already cacophonous session.
“This is not going to take a backseat,” said House Transportation Chairwoman Karen St. Germain, D-Plaquemine. “What the Legislature decides to do with it all is another thing. They’re going to get hit with it back at home.”
St. Germain said she is in the research stage of drafting a package of bills, starting with a sequel to the infrastructure bank idea. The concept called for loaning money to local governments for transportation projects, but voters rejected the constitutional amendment last year amid concerns of redirecting money from the state’s rainy day fund.
She said a new “possibility” includes a penny sales tax that would either go into a newly proposed infrastructure bank or the Transportation Trust Fund. St. Germain said it could generate $650 million, and she’d be willing to sunset the tax after three years and dedicate the money to projects statewide, not just a select few.
Indexing the gas tax to the consumer price index and reimagining truck-trailer license fees are also on the table, although only conceptually at this point.
“I want to at least lay the groundwork,” she said. “If I do nothing but plant a seed, I can say we started the talks.”
It’s a numbers-heavy issue that starts and ends with a $12 billion backlog of road and bridge work. There’s a 20-cent state tax on gas right now, which can raise upwards of $587 million. There have been complaints that only $27 million goes toward the maintenance of Louisiana’s roads and bridges, when $70 million is needed. That another $60 million goes to Louisiana State Police for traffic control has created a minor controversy that will grow this session.
Then there’s a separate $400 million pot of money connected to vehicle sales taxes and truck-trailer license fees that could be used, but it will not become available until 2020.Senate Transportation Chairman Robert Adley, R-Benton, has his sights set on all of these numbers. He said he’s working on a bill that would allow the state to access the $400 million pot sooner, but in stages. Perhaps around $100 million beginning in 2016 or 2017, with at least $70 million dedicated to road and bridge preservation.
“It’ll be a hit on the state general fund, so it’ll have to be offset some way,” he said, adding that raising the cap on the rainy day fund and using excess mineral revenue may be an avenue.
Courtney Baker, transportation director for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said LABI supports redefining the trigger for accessing the pot of money filled with vehicle sales taxes and truck-trailer license fees. The group wants to see it phased in, as Adley is proposing, but there could be some concerns about using the rainy day fund to make the proposal revenue neutral.
Baker said LABI is also interested in “restoring the public trust” in the TTF, particularly on the issue of State Police receiving $60 million for traffic control.
Adley said he is working on a number of different options to stop TTF from being “raided” by local governments and State Police.
“Maybe redefining traffic control or a constitutional amendment to stop it, and another effort to make sure there’s a fair distribution from the parish fund, are things that could have an immediate impact,” Adley said.
LABI is investigating how Texas was able to pass a constitutional amendment transferring $1.7 billion in oil and gas production tax collections to its state highway fund, and it’s also looking at a plan to direct surplus money to infrastructure improvements along economic development corridors, which is expected to surface as a bill this session.
Multimodal office nearing finish line
The checkered flag isn’t exactly being waved, but the forces behind a new Office of Multimodal Commerce at the Department of Transportation and Development do feel like a compromise has been reached.
The Legislature and governor approved the new office last year, as proposed in legislation by Sen. Norby Chabert, R-Houma. It restructures part of the strategic decision-making process at DOTD by isolating roads and bridges for the department’s new focus.
Meanwhile, the commissioner of the new Office of Multimodal Commerce will be charged with coordinating commercial trucking; ports and waterways; aviation; and freight and passenger rail development.
The office is scheduled to come online next year, but first the Legislature must place into law the operational framework, based on recommendations from an advisory commission that has been meeting over the past few months.
Chabert, the transportation chairs, department heads and others signed off on the recommendations, but a sticking point was whether a firewall should be created to separate the new office from DOTD. It was eventually left out of the recommendations and stakeholders say if it resurfaces during session, it could be a deal-breaker.
“We’ll work as hard as we can to make it as autonomous as possible,” Chabert said. “And we’re going to continue to work the angles that please everyone.”
Lawmakers will have to vote this year on merging the different divisions and creating a framework for the new commissioner, but the actual appropriations will not be needed until fiscal year 2016-2017. A salary will need to be hammered out and the office’s overall budget is already a part of DOTD and can be pulled over into a separate unit, if approved by lawmakers.
One item included as part of the official recommendations asks the Legislature to direct DOTD to develop a plan for intercity passenger rail, which has been bouncing around in studies in recent years and in talks with nonprofit partners. The recommendation also asks that additional personnel and funding, as necessary, be made available.
Chabert argues that the office will more properly position the state to take advantage of business opportunities like the widening of the Panama Canal and increased energy exploration that DOTD is unable to focus wholeheartedly on with a massive backlog of transportation projects.
The effort is part of a larger national policy trend that recognizes a synergistic approach to multimodal commerce. Louisiana would be only the second state in the nation to establish such an office. Pennsylvania led the way in 2013.
They Said It
“Nothing in my life has ever been unanimous.”
—Former Gov. Edwin Edwards, after the Real Estate Commission voted 7-2 to grant his real estate broker’s license, in The Reveille
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