Voters in Illinois, New Jersey OK Transportation Lockboxes
This story appears in the Nov. 14 print edition of Transport Topics.
Voters in Illinois and New Jersey approved lockboxes for transportation funding while those in Washington State rejected what would have been the nation’s first statewide carbon emissions tax.
Those three proposals were the highlights of the nine infrastructure-related measures — six of which passed — on statewide ballots Nov. 8.
“The diversity of the measures reflects that states are starting to figure out their own approaches for dealing with a range of transportation challenges,” said Robert Puentes, president of the Eno Center for Transportation.
He said the federal government’s failure to raise fuel taxes since 1993 and the relative lack of funds for states from the FAST Act has been important.
“The FAST Act sent a very strong signal that the federal government has kind of given at the office and that it’s up to these places to raise their own money and solve their own problems,” Puentes said.
The approval of the guaranteed transportation funding showed that voters, at least in Illinois and New Jersey, want to treat fuel taxes as user fees, said Sue Gander, director of the energy, environment and transportation division of the National Governors Association.
“If voters are sure that the funds will be going to the thing they care about, in this case transportation, they are supportive of that,” Gander said. “Voters want to enforce the discipline that maybe they think has been lacking [by government officials]. I think it’s something that a lot of states are going to take a look at.”
The Safe Roads Amendment in Illinois, which ensures billions of state dollars will be set aside for transportation projects, needed 60% approval to pass. It received a whopping 79%.
“The Illinois Trucking Association is very pleased that almost 80% of the public say: ‘We want lawmakers to spend the taxes they collect for roads on roads,’ ” said the association’s executive director Matt Hart. “That’s a huge victory for taxpayers in Illinois.”
New Jersey’s lockbox received 54% support, less than a month after Gov. Chris Christie signed bills that will increase diesel taxes by 27 cents-per-gallon and gas 23-cents-per-gallon by the middle of next year. Those taxes hadn’t been raised since 1988.
“Dedicating taxes collected for a specific purpose should be protected and used for that purpose,” said Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association. “In the past, the [Transportation Trust Fund] had to be raided for general fund purposes. This will ensure that all fuel-related taxes will be used for transportation.”
However, she added, it wasn’t until after the tax increase was voted on that everyone found out that the state will be borrowing billions of dollars over the next eight years, so another significant fuel tax is looming.
Where voters in Illinois and New Jersey took control from their legislatures on transportation revenue, their counterparts in California disagreed.
Ballot measures need 60% approval to become law in California. Proposition 53, which would have required voter approval for any state project that cost more than $2 billion, received just 49% support, when it needed two-thirds of support.
Voters in Washington, one of the nation’s greenest and bluest states, rejected a carbon emissions tax by a 59-41 margin. The tax would’ve raised about $2.2 billion annually, according to its backers. Tax rates would have begun at $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, risen to $25 per metric ton the following year and then kept up with inflation.
“I think folks were confused about what exactly they were getting in Washington,” Puentes said. “Some thought it didn’t go far enough. Others thought it went too far.”
By a 55-45 margin, Missouri voters turned down Proposition A, which would have raised the nation’s lowest cigarette taxes from 17 cents a pack to 23 cents a pack by 2021, with revenue going for infrastructure projects.
Voters in Maine, by a 61-39 margin, approved $100 million in bonds, with $80 million going to the construction and maintenance of highways and bridges in the state.
Rhode Islanders gave a 63-37 thumbs-up to $70 million in bonds to improve the ports of Davisville and Providence.
Louisianans voted, by a 54-46 margin, to create a trust fund for corporate and mineral tax revenue that will be used only for construction and transportation infrastructure.
“The notion of using natural resources revenue to create the fund is interesting,” Puentes said, noting that not all states are so blessed to consider such a concept.
By a 51-49 margin, voters in Alabama gave the go-ahead to municipalities in Baldwin County to build toll roads and bridges financed through the sale of bonds.
