Oregon Democrats’ latest attempt at a massive road funding bill is headed to a floor vote – and this time it’s got at least one Republican on board.
House Bill 2025 cleared a legislative committee on Thursday, after lawmakers adopted an 11th-hour amendment aimed at saving the bill from certain failure. But with one Senate Democrat escalating his opposition, the funding package’s fate was still an open question.
The revamped bill is somewhat smaller in scope than Democrats’ first attempt at a transportation package. It would raise around $11.7 billion over the next decade, less than the $14.6 billion anticipated in an earlier version.
That scaled back approach was enough to win one Republican vote that could prove crucial. State Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, announced in committee that he’d concluded the bill was a necessary step to ease a chronic shortfall in funds to repair and maintain Oregon roads.
“I’ve prayed on this and I’ve chewed on this, because where are we going to go if we don’t move forward with this legislation?” said Mannix, who has been part of the transportation funding discussion since lawmakers conducted a statewide listening tour last year.
The newly won support marks the first public backing HB 2025 has seen from a Republican since an initial version of the bill was unveiled June 9. And it could prove crucial.
The bill needs a three-fifths majority vote in both chambers in order to pass. Democrats theoretically can muster that on their own if they stick together, but the party has shown few signs it will do so.
But if Mannix offers the bill some breathing room in the House, its path through the Senate is anything but clear. On Thursday, Democratic Senator Mark Meek escalated his opposition to HB 2025, taking to social media with claims the bill would sneakily lead to tolling on Interstate 205.
“Clackamas County: Tolling is back,” Meek wrote in a post on X. “It’s buried on pg 84 of the 155 pg transportation bill — but we found it.”
That’s an explosive claim in Meek’s Gladstone district, which furiously fought past efforts at freeway tolling. And Democrats rushed Thursday to refute the claim.
“I will not direct the [Oregon Transportation] Commission to toll I-205 and will not support standalone tolling on I-205,” Gov. Tina Kotek wrote in a letter sent to top lawmakers. The bill, she wrote, “does not impact or change my direction” on tolling.
The version of HB 2025 that is now headed to the House floor contains elements Democrats initially proposed. That includes more frequent audits of the Oregon Department of Transportation; a “road usage charge” designed to wean Oregon off the gas tax by charging drivers of electric vehicles and highly fuel efficient vehicles a fee based on miles they drive; and increasing a tax dedicated to transit service that Oregon workers pay from their paychecks from 0.1% to 0.3%.
But the bill scales back many of the major tax provisions of the first bill. Changes include:
- Raising the state’s 40-cent-per-gallon gas tax by 12 cents beginning next year. The initial bill raised it by 15 cents via two staggered increases.
- Scrapping a “transfer tax” that would have added 2% to new car sales and 1% to purchases of used cars worth more than $10,000. Instead, lawmakers propose raising an existing tax for the “privilege” of selling cars in the state from 0.5% to 2.25%.
- Doing away with a provision to ensure the state’s gas tax would rise with inflation.
The amendment brings in roughly $3 billion less than the previous version of the bill. But it would also introduce complications.
One is that money from hiking the tax on car sales would not go into the state’s Highway Trust Fund, which funds nuts-and-bolts road maintenance. It would instead be earmarked for a set of specific purposes, such as completing the I-5 Rose Quarter project, electric vehicle rebates and projects to make busy roadways safer for pedestrians.
At Thursday’s hearing, some voiced worry that less money in the highway fund will mean the state needs another infusion of cash in just a few years.
“Oregon will very likely need to come back to this discussion much sooner than the 10-year look that was previously described in this committee,” said Susan Allen, with Oregon AFSCME Local 75. “We are concerned that after 2029 the inflation will outpace the revenue generated from this package.”
Lawmakers have been working since last year to figure out a way to sustainably inject funding into road maintenance at the state and local level. They say that existing revenue streams, such as the gas tax, have failed to rise with inflation – and are likely to dwindle as electric vehicles become more prominent.
The Oregon Department of Transportation says it will have to eliminate more than 880 positions if more money isn’t found. A $6.1 billion budget bill for the agency failed on the House floor Thursday, partly over concerns that the matter of road funding hadn’t been settled.
Meanwhile, cities and counties warn that many of their roads are falling deeper and deeper into disrepair.
As they have throughout this year’s session, Republicans and Democrats offered very different perspectives on the latest version of HB 2025.
State Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, suggested the process was “unprecedented in its nature.”
“This was not a product of good faith,” she said. “This was not a product of bipartisan work.”
Democrats, while not effusive about the bill, described it as a necessary step.
“The taxes pay for the ability for us to get things done, and what we need to do is get some things done,” said state Sen. Lew Frederick, R-Portland. “It’s very clear if you drive around.”
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.