By Lisa Fadden, Vice President for Public Affairs, Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce.
There aren’t many issues that all 32 Senators and Delegates in the Montgomery County Delegation can agree upon. Better yet, there are even fewer issues that both the Montgomery and Prince George’s Delegation can agree on. Ironically, the one issue that falls into that category – the issue with near unanimous support - is also one that has had no solution for decades – transportation funding.
This session – amidst budget cuts and ugly revenue estimates, there actually are some opportunities for the Montgomery County Delegation to have an impact, albeit small, on the issue of transportation funding.
Problem 1: Plummeting Revenues
Revenues in the transportation trust fund have plummeted rapidly, even more so than revenues in the general fund. The Maryland Department of Transportation has cut over $2 billion in revenues to projects over the past six months. These cuts have meant delays or deferrals of projects critical to Montgomery County, including the Georgia Avenue/Randolph Rd. interchange, the County’s top highway priority for years, along with cuts to the State commitment to both the Purple Line and the Corridor Cities Transitway.
Problem 2: An Unsustainable Trust Fund
Our model of funding transportation at the State level in Maryland is totally unsustainable. The Trust Fund’s top source of funding still remains the gas tax, in addition to the titling tax and driver registration fees. The gas tax has not been raised since the early 90’s, and has not even been indexed to the rate of inflation in those nearly two decades.
While we applaud efforts to encourage transit oriented development and believe it is imperative that the automakers design more fuel efficient cars, this has already had an impact on gas tax revenues, an impact that will grow staggering over the coming decades. If we don’t find alternate methods of funding transportation, the infrastructure hole that we have dug ourselves into will only continue to grow larger, until we literally cannot dig ourselves out of it.
Problem 3: Vulnerability from the General Fund
In these difficult times, the Transportation Trust Fund has a huge target on its back. In thirty years, the trust fund has been raided ten times in order to fill budget gaps in the general fund. While it was the right thing to do for the General Assembly to place sales tax revenues in the Trust Fund during the special session, these revenues are particularly vulnerable given the historic perspective of these revenues as General Fund revenues.
The bottom line: If we cannot demonstrate to the Federal government in the next few years that we have enough revenue in the Transportation Trust Fund to pay for our State share of our Federal New Starts projects, the Purple Line and the Corridor Cities Transitway, these projects have no chance of survival – and we only get one shot at it.
Some solutions:
TTF Protection Bill – House Bill 140, sponsored by Delegate Brian Feldman (D-15), would protect the Trust Fund from being raided by the general fund for the purposes of filling general fund deficits. The bill requires that before the governor removes money from the trust fund, he must have the approval of the legislature, and must demonstrate a repayment plan. This is a very modest proposal to protect the trust fund.
Transportation Infrastructure Task Force Bill – Senate Bill 853, sponsored by Senator Rob Garagiola (D-15), would establish a commission to report back to the General Assembly in January of 2011 that would identify the most appropriate sources of revenue to fund the future of the trust fund. While many people shrug or sigh at the idea of another task force, this bill would take into account climate change and environmental factors that are much more prevalent in our reality today than they were even five years ago. In addition, this task force could serve as a vehicle for the movement of a revenue bill during the 2011 session, safely after the 2010 election.
NOTE: While there are many gas tax increase and inflationary adjustment bills that merit passage, I don’t mention them here given that they are highly unlikely to pass this session.
Traffic relief still remains amongst the top two issues for voters. If the Montgomery County Delegation could unite on the two bills above, and unite with their colleagues around the State, we could take a modest step towards ensuring the future of the transportation trust fund.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
What the Montgomery County Delegation Can Do on Transportation Funding
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5 comments:
Lisa,
Great to see your guest post here and I could not agree more that transportation is a great issue for the County delegation to rally around.
But count me among the skeptics of the necessity or advisability of another commission. I wrote about my distaste for further commissions a while back: http://maryland-politics.blogspot.com/2008/09/enough-with-commissions.html
We have legislative committees that should use the summer study period to dive into the issue, as legislators and not commissioners. We also have plenty of commission reports on the shelf on transportation.
Another open-ended commission is not the answer. In the short term, Annapolis should consider the bills you mention in your note. In the long term, our legislators should do their jobs through the committee process, especially taking advantage of the nine months they are not in Annapolis.
-Marc
Marc,
I think that the proliferation of commissions in the past has been problematic and that oftentimes the work product sits on a shelf and collects dust. However, there have been good Commissions/Task Forces as well.
For example, I served on a 18-month commission on provider reimbursement along with Senator Middleton, two House Delegates, health care providers, carriers, the Insurance Commissioner, and other state agency officials. The exchange and expertise of the members of this commission led to very balanced, quality recommendations. The result: 4 recommendations are moving forward via regulation/administrative actions; 2 legislative recommendations have passed the Senate; 1 legislative recommendation just passed the Senate Finance Committee; and the only other recommendation, also legislative, appears to be ready to pass another committee. It was important to bring multiple stakeholders together on equal footing to develop such a good work product in this case, rather than having legislators on one side of the witness table and interested stakeholders on the other side.
I can cite a few other examples where a commission has been beneficial as well.
I think with respect to transportation, the key is to have a commission to make long-term, sustainable funding recommendations, not just short-term for today. The last commision we had on transportation, about 5 years ago, also led to passage of legislation for funding sources. However, this commission had a more short-term focus.
If we do not establish a transportation funding commission, then I would hope Budget & Tax and the Finance Committee in the Senate and relevant committee's in the House look into this matter. However, due to the fact that transportation issues traverse multiple House and Senate Committees, it may make sense to establish a Commission to bring a key legislators together who serve on such committees with other stakeholders.
Just a few thoughts...
I'd add this: the Oregon report was a long-range document developed by dozens of stakeholders inside and outside government. It quantified the state's needs, proposed revenues and pilot programs and set an ambitious agenda with widespread support. If Senator Garagiola's bill results in a similar guiding document, that would be a big step forward for Maryland.
Senator,
Thank you for engaging on the issue. I appreciate your public comments here and I know you have worked on the issue in Annapolis. You have not been one to punt by simply proposing a commission, but have shown political courage in proposing a gas tax increase in the past.
As Adam has noted, Oregon has a great reference document for us: http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/pdf/tvreport_final.pdf as do the feds: http://financecommission.dot.gov/
Let's steal some ideas from here and implement them in Maryland. We do not need a commission to suggest we pilot a VMT program, index the gas tax, streamline our study process, or refocus on transit.
The advantage I see to a commission is, as I think Adam has noted, it offers a chance for stakeholders to assert themselves. I see two other ways that can occur while still moving us forward:
1. The Committee Process-Committees need not be legislators sitting around talking to themselves. Hearing can offer opportunities for back and forth exchange with stakeholders to help craft good legislation.
2. An Implementation Commission-If we feel we need a commission, then lets empower it to actually make change. This will take legislative creativity and would probably require input from the AG's office, but perhaps narrowly tailored legislation on specific transportation issues, like permit streamlining, can include an implementation commission to make sure stakeholders are heard as we are moving forward, not just while we are studying and kicking the can down the road.
I'm just thinking out loud here. I appreciate the big, one time investment from the stimulus and forward progress on specific projects like the Purple Line. But I'd really like to see some substantial progress towards systematic reform before the next election.
-Marc
I suppose you could look at another Commission as a consultant and lobbyist jobs program. What we need is the legislative backbone to bite the bullet and adopt a couple of the classic recommendations on the table. Raise the gas tax, adopt a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax, or redefine the whole thing as a carbon fee. I don't see it happening any time soon.
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