Oregon Trucking Lays Plans For Ballot Battle Over Taxes

Convincing voters to raise their own taxes is a tall order, but that’s the task Oregon truckers face if they want a repeal of the state’s weight-distance tax to take effect.

Oregon Gov. John A. Kitzhaber approved a transportation spending package that replaces the state’s truck taxation system with a 29-cent diesel fuel tax and significantly higher truck registration fees. The legislation also raises the gasoline tax by 5 cents a gallon and increases auto registration fees by $10.

Those changes were put on hold in October after the Oregon/Idaho chapter of the American Automobile Association and a anti-tax group called Oregon Taxpayers United gathered enough signatures to put the plan to a public vote in the May 2000 presidential primary ("Thousands Sign to Nullify Oregon Weight-Distance Tax Repeal," 10-11, p. 1).

Trucking and its allies are readying a $3 million-plus public relations campaign to convince voters to support the tax package and repeal, now known as Measure 82. Trucking’s interests are tied directly to the outcome of the referendum. Oregon Trucking Associations and its supporters fought for many years to eliminate Oregon’s weight-distance tax. Finally winning legislative repeal this year was a particularly resonant victory because the tax was the oldest of its kind and had served as a model for other states.

For the full story, see the Dec. 20 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.