Ark. Senate to Vote on Highway Bills
The bills would generate revenue to improve state and local roads by raising gasoline and diesel taxes a penny a gallon in each of the next three years and to refer a $575 million bond issue to voters to speed interstate repairs.
Three senators said they would propose changes to the bill increasing fuel taxes to treat the trucking industry differently from passenger vehicle drivers. They would either increase the diesel tax hike or impose it immediately.
A fourth proposal would refer the tax increases to the public, along with the bond issue.
Huckabee and members of the state Highway Commission said any changes could jeopardize the plan, which passed the House as a compromise two weeks ago. The governor said he is talking to senators, encouraging to pass the legislation as is.
"I don't think anybody wants to derail the highway bill. I don't think the Senate wants to be the ones going home responsible for having killed our best chances of a highway program," Huckabee said. "What we're trying to help them to understand is that is in fact what they might be doing, even tough that's not their intention."
An alternative plan to tax heavy trucks based on weight and distance traveled also is on the Senate calendar Tuesday.
Sponsoring Sen. Cliff Hoofman said he expected a close vote on his plan to raise $59 million.
Hoofman needs 18 votes. The House fuel tax increases require 27 votes.
Sen. Wayne Dowd wants to raise the diesel tax by 4 cents a gallon and impose the diesel tax immediately. Sen. Jon Fitch would raise the diesel tax by 4 cents and lower the gas tax hike to 2 cents and impose both immediately.
A late addition by Sen. Bill Gwatney would leave the tax increases but enact the diesel increase immediately.
"That doesn't alter the integrity of the bill," Gwatney said. "We're trying to figure out a way to treat truckers differently than we treat the motoring public."
If there are changes, Gwatney's proposal probably would be the most palatable, Highway Commission Chairman Herby Branscum Jr. said.
"That would probably get through the House. Anything else could be a struggle," said Branscum of Perryville. He and state Highway Director Dan Flowers talked to individual senators outside the chamber.
Huckabee, who received substantial campaign contributions from the trucking industry, said taxes that transportation companies pay are passed on to consumers anyway and that the state would not benefit from having the highest diesel taxes in the region.
"There's no question but that the heavy trucks do more damage to the roads. But they're not traveling on all the roads," according to the governor, who said heavy trucks use about 13 percent of Arkansas roads. "They're going to be uniquely and totally funding the rebuilding of the interstates."
