The statewide transportation tax package proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders of the state Legislature takes an excellent idea and runs it off the road.
Last week, they unveiled a package to raise taxes on gasoline and diesel and increase vehicle-registration fees. Their primary argument is right: The state’s excise tax on gasoline hasn’t increased for more than two decades, while streets and highways are crumbling and in dire need of repair.
But the money would be handed out to transportation interest groups with minimal cost controls. This bill would become yet another funding pot for salaries and benefits at organizations such as BART at the local level and Caltrans statewide.
Moreover, the taxes would increase annually with the consumer price index. For example, the gasoline excise tax would increase from 18 cents a gallon to 30, and the annual cost-of-living adjustment would be applied to the full 30 cents.
That might make sense if there were opportunities for future voter or legislative review. But there aren’t. This is a permanent tax hike with permanent annually cost-of-living increases, and no end date.
Yet legislative leaders are planning to ram this legislation through with votes Thursday, less than a week after the bill, SB 1, was released.
It’s bad policy and it’s an abhorrent legislative process.
Democrats have supermajorities in the Assembly and Senate, which theoretically gives them the two-thirds they need to pass a tax hike.
It might not be easy. Democratic legislators will be pulled between core constituencies: labor unions, which are rallying behind the legislation because of the resulting jobs, and environmentalists, who have gone on the attack.
Groups such as Sierra Club, Coalition for Clean Air, American Lung Association and Union of Concerned Scientists object to a provision slipped in that would weaken the ability to impose new pollution limits on trucks. These sorts of rules were critical for improving air quality in neighborhoods around the Port of Oakland.
In the Senate, unless Democrats can find a Republican vote, they cannot afford to lose one of their own. But state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, is balking. Brown says Glazer’s demand for a provision prohibiting transit strikes is a “non-starter” that would kill the bill.
Brown’s right that it would be a deal-breaker for many Democrats. But he misses the bigger point. Glazer’s demand is a proxy for addressing BART’s irrational labor costs, which SB 1 would make worse.
The bill would dole out $7.5 billion for transit operations (read labor expenses) and capital over the next decade — with no meaningful cost controls.
Which, of course, prompts the question: How did a bill that was supposed to fix our crumbling roads become a slush fund for transit district operations? This legislation veered drastically off course.
