OLYMPIA — State lawmakers are driving forward with a plan to charge electric vehicle owners $100 a year to help take care of the highways on which they travel.
Senate transpor
tation leaders penciled the new fee into the proposed $8.9 billion spending plan for the 2011-13 budget that they unveiled Tuesday. A public hearing on the budget proposal is scheduled this afternoon in the Senate Transportation Committee.
While the fee will only generate around $500,000 for roadwork in the next two years, they said it’s an important drop in the revenue bucket for the state.
Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, who is chairwoman of the transportation panel, said all automobile owners need to share the burden of maintaining highways, which is becoming increasingly difficult with gas tax revenues on the decline.
She said the state expects to collect fewer gas tax dollars in this budget than in the current one. That’s why she and her Senate colleagues expressed agreement Tuesday with House transportation leaders on the need to put some sort of a revenue-raising package before voters next year.
For the most part, the Senate proposal mirrors the transportation spending plan released by the House on Monday. Once each chamber passes its own plan, negotiations will be held to iron out any differences.
Both will make travel on state ferries more expensive and slightly less convenient though not quite in the same way.
The Senate is proposing to increase fares by 5 percent in the next two years and add a 25-cent surcharge on each ticket to put toward building new ferries. The House is calling for raising fares by 7.5 percent with no surcharge.
Service is cut in both budgets. While the Senate lets Washington State Ferries management decide which sailings to cancel, the House came up with a list. It includes eliminating the last runs of the night between Mukilteo and Clinton.
On the matter of boats, the Senate joined the House in requiring the next new 64-vehicle ferry be assigned to the Coupeville-Port Townsend route. That boat is due for delivery this year.
This puts lawmakers at odds with Gov. Chris Gregoire who wants the boat available for use elsewhere in the ferry system.
Senators are backing $87 million to start construction of two new 144-car vessels. Moreover, they want ferry officials to see if both boats can be built to run on liquefied natural gas, a move they said will save the state money on fuel costs. The House is only looking toward building one larger boat.
Both budgets do retain funding for fixing the intersection of Bickford Avenue and U.S. 2. But unlike the House, the Senate plan does not provide funds to Community Transit for restarting a minimum level of service on Sundays.
SB 5176 and HB 1175, the transportation budgets for the Senate and House respectively, can be read online at www.leap.leg.wa.gov.
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com
On the Net
To see a comparison of the House and Senate Transportation budgets, go to tinyurl.com/WaTransPlans.
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