All Eyes on Corbett When It Comes to Transportation

Pennsylvania lawmakers are waiting impatiently for Gov. Tom Corbett to take a stance on transportation funding initiatives.

It's been more than a month since his commission suggested raising $2.5 billion in new annual revenue for roads, bridges and mass transit.

“We’re getting a tremendous amount of pressure to do something,” said state Rep. Rick Geist, R-Blair, chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “It’s all up to the governor right now. Why do you go out there and have your commission and then not back it up?” 

Lawmakers and newspaper editorial writers are ramping up the pressure on Corbett to say whether he would be willing to take some steps to increase funding for infrastructure in the state. Leaders in the General Assembly believe the time is right to address the issue. 

In March, Corbett announced the formation of the Transportation Funding Advisory Commission, or TFAC, to study how to pay for needed repairs to the state’s roads and mass transit systems. 

Pennsylvania consistently gets low ranks on national evaluations of infrastructure and a commission formed under previous Gov. Ed Rendell suggested that the state needed to make $3.5 billion in new annual investments in the transportation system. 

Corbett's Transportation Commission submitted a plan to the governor in August outlining $2.5 billion in new, annually recurring revenue for transportation projects. 

Since then, the administration has been silent. 

“I expect that we’ll get an answer out of the governor in the next couple of weeks,” said state Secretary of Transportation Barry Schoch. “He’s a very thoughtful man, and he is very carefully evaluating the options we gave him.” 

The TFAC plan centers on uncapping a portion of the state’s gasoline tax and raising the fees for licenses and registrations to match inflation. 

The Oil Franchise Tax, a component of the gasoline tax, is only applied to the first $1.25 of each gallon of gas, and that cap has not been raised since 1983. Most of the state’s license and registration fees have not increased since 1997. 

If the governor and Legislature embrace the commission’s plan, drivers’ license fees would increase from $29.50 every four years to $69 for an eight-year license. Car registrations would jump from $36 annually to $98 every other year. 

The average driver would pay about $100 extra annually for a car driven 12,000 miles with an average fuel efficiency of 25 miles per gallon. Part of that would be an estimated 10 cent increase in the price of gas if the cap on the franchise tax is lifted, according to the commission report. 

The Pennsylvania AAA Federation, which advocates on behalf of drivers, has warned that higher fees could hurt some drivers, specifically the poor and elderly. 

Corbett pledged during his campaign not to raise taxes or fees without an equal offset in some other part of the budget. 

State Sen. John Wozniak, D-Cambria, minority chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said transportation infrastructure cannot be improved unless money is spent. 

“We have a public that doesn’t want to hear the word ‘fees’ or the word ‘taxes,’” Wozniak said. “They think we can just tighten the belt, and everything will get better.” 

While lawmakers said all options in the TFAC report remain on the table, Senate Transportation Chairman John Rafferty, R-Montgomery, said he wanted to “put to bed” the notion that tolls could be applied to existing non-tolled highways--including Route 422 in the Philadelphia suburbs. 

There is no proposal in the Legislature or in front of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, or PennDOT, to toll that road, Rafferty said. 

With the economy perched on the edge of a possible double-dip recession, Schoch said Corbett was being particularly deliberative with other portions of the proposal that would affect the state’s general fund revenue--such as moving a $500 million annual payment for the state police out of the transportation budget and into the general fund.

But the longer the governor waits, the less likely anything will be accomplished this fall. It will take at least 15 legislative days to get a transportation package through the General Assembly, Geist said. 

It’s unusual to have leaders on both sides of the aisle ready to address an issue at the same time and be left waiting for the governor, he said. 

Lawmakers and experts said the timing is critical for passing a transportation package. With the entire state House and half of the state Senate running for re-election in 2012, any plans to raise revenue by placing costs on drivers are unlikely to gain traction next year. 

“We’re running out of time, and we need to get moving on this, or we’re going to run out of session days,” said Dennis Yablonsky, a former head of the state Department of Community and Economic Development during the Rendell administration who now leads the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. The conference works with affiliates "in collaboration with public and private sector partners to stimulate economic growth and enhance the quality of life in southwestern Pennsylvania," according to its website. 

Wozniak and Rafferty agreed that transportation funding initiatives would be more difficult to pass in 2012. 

Recent flooding from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee also has ramped up the pressure on lawmakers and the governor to address the state’s transportation weaknesses. Schoch said an estimated 40,000 miles of state road and 38 bridges were damaged. 

Elam Herr, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, or PSATS, a local government advocacy group, said the final cost of damage from the storms would be “astronomical” when fully calculated. 

While the focus remains on how to best increase revenue for state roads and transit systems, some are asking PennDOT to first take a closer look at how the department spends its money.

Matthew Brouillette, president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based free market think tank, said Pennsylvania’s highway system is high-cost and poor quality. He urged lawmakers to consider not only how to generate additional revenue for transportation projects, but also to “prioritize every dollar” spent by the state. 

"We believe that funding and maintaining our transportation infrastructure is a core function of state government,” Brouillette said. “But before you ask the taxpayers to pay even more money at the pump, in bonded debt, in tolls or any other measure, we believe these principles and reforms should shape the discussion and final outcome." 

A 2007 report from Rendell's Pennsylvania Transportation Funding and Reform Commission, a precursor to Corbett’s commission this summer, concluded that no additional money should be provided for highways and transit “unless a series of parallel actions are taken to reform the funding structure and a number of transportation business practices.” 

Schoch said the department has taken steps to save money--including cutting more than 500 PennDOT positions since 1997--but the cost of construction and maintenance has climbed too quickly. Bid prices have climbed by 114 percent since 1997, he said. 

At the same time, vehicles have become more fuel efficient, so the state gets less revenue from the gasoline tax on a per-vehicle basis, he said. 

“We’re basically working with less revenue per vehicle, fewer staff and our revenue is not keeping pace with inflation,” Schoch said.