California lawmakers approve 10-year $52.4b infrastructure bill

The Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 will raise roughly $5.2 billion per year in investment funding for transportation infrastructure over the next 10 years through a series of gas and diesel tax hikes.    The California legislature has approved a bill that will increase gas and diesel taxes statewide in order to fund investment in ailing transportation infrastructure.
   The 10-year $52.4 billion Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 (SB 1) passed by a vote of 27-11 in the state Senate and 54-26 in the Assembly after receiving strong support from Gov. Jerry Brown, state Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
   The legislation raises roughly $5.2 billion per year in investment funding for transportation infrastructure through a series of gas and diesel tax hikes Brown and others say will cost most drivers less than $10 per month.
   According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, however, several Republicans opposed the plan, arguing that California taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for transportation funding.
   “Are you really going to increase taxes on the families who are struggling in this state every single day?” Sen. Jeff Stone reportedly asked during a debate on the Senate floor.
   In order to fund the bill, $7.3 billion would be collected over the course of the next decade by increasing diesel excise tax by $0.20, $3.5 billion by increasing diesel sales tax to 5.75 percent, $24.4 billion by increasing the gasoline excise tax by $0.12, $16.3 billion from an annual transportation improvement fee based on a vehicle’s value, $200 million from an annual $100 Zero Emission Vehicle fee commencing in 2020, and $706 million in General Fund loan repayments to be distributed equally between state and local infrastructure.
   “SB 1 updates an obsolete revenue system that fell behind the spiraling maintenance demands of more than 357,000 lane miles of state, city, and county roads,” Sen. Jim Beall, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee and author of the bill, said in a statement. “The state gas tax has not changed in 23 years and this bill will require it to be adjusted for inflation.
   “The bill is based on a user-pays model, placing the responsibility on the motorists who use the roads to maintain the roads,” he added. “The cost to the average driver will be about $10 a month.”
   In addition, Beall noted the bill includes accountability measures that will ensure collected funds can only be spent on transportation infrastructure projects.
   These include a constitutional amendment to prohibit spending the funds on anything but transportation, authorizing the state Inspector General to ensure Caltrans and any entities receiving funds spend taxpayer dollars efficiently, effectively and in compliance with state and federal requirements, a provision that empowers the California Transportation Commission to hold state and local government accountable for making the transportation improvements to which they commit, authorization for the California Transportation Commission to review and allocate Caltrans funding and staffing for highway maintenance, and authorization for Caltrans to complete earlier mitigation of environmental impacts from construction.
   “By investing in the repair of the infrastructure that millions of Californians rely on every day, the state is also generating and sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs and our infrastructure and expanding pre-apprenticeship and job training in the state,” said Beall. “It will take 300,000 smog-spewing diesel trucks off the roads, eliminating 90 tons of nitrogen oxides and three tons of toxic diesel soot per day. In addition, $700 million will be available for mass transit projects that will reduce the cars on the road, such as extending BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to San Jose.”
   According to a report from Bloomberg last month, at least 14 other states are considering raising gas taxes in order to fund transportation infrastructure investments, and another 19 states and the District of Columbia have increased tax rates since 2013.