Arkansas Highway Bill Hits Bump
The 71-22 vote heartened supporters, however, and sponsors kept the measure in the House, where they will try again to garner 75 votes to pass it, perhaps as early as Monday.
"I feel great about 71 votes on a Friday," said Rep. Bobby Glover. "Had the people who told us they would vote for it been here it would have passed."
Trucking interests hope to get the bill sent back to the Senate, where they intend to try to force a House-Senate conference and a possible compromise to phase in the 4-cent diesel tax increase instead of having it imposed immediately, as the Senate has proposed.
"I'm sure there'll be ... representatives contacted by owners of small businesses over the weekend to reconsider their position if they voted for this tax increase," said Lane Kidd, president of the Arkansas Motor Carriers Association.
Truckers will agree to a 4-cent-a-gallon increase to pass a highway program but feel it's reasonable that operators be given enough time to attempt to renegotiate some of their contracts, so they can absorb the additional costs, Kidd said.
Friday's vote followed the House Revenue and Taxation Committee's unanimous recommendation to send to the full House the Senate's idea of placing a heavier tax burden on heavy trucks.
Amending the bill this week, Senate supporters said heavy trucks do most of the damage to the roads and that Arkansas voters would want them to place a heavier tax burden on trucks to pay for repairs. The Senate retained the House's 3-cent a gallon gasoline tax increase, phased in at a penny a year.
Fuel tax increases are part of a package that also includes Gov. Mike Huckabee's $575 million bond issue to speed up interstate improvements. The bond bill has passed both houses and is awaiting the governor's signature for referral to a special election.
Together, the bills would pay for repairing more than 300 miles of crumbling interstates, pump millions of extra dollars into non-interstate highway construction that started in 1991 and allocate millions more for county roads and city streets.
Friday in the House, Glover told colleagues that the Senate amendment had made their bill better because it would provide more local and state highway construction money up-front.
He also said it would make the bonds more marketable, undercut support for an alternative proposal to tax heavy trucks by weight and distance traveled, and help negate the need for toll roads.
"We have a lot riding on this proposal," Glover said.
Rep. John Eason said he had started trying to tally the bumps in the road from his rural eastern Arkansas home but soon lost count.
"Let's don't look at this as a tax," Eason said in a winding speech that ranged from funny to rousing. "I feel good about Arkansas. This is the time for us to do something."
But opponents of the Senate change, some of whom voted for fuel tax increases in the original House bill, said they saw no need to impose the higher diesel tax immediately.
"I'm for raising the price. But what's the big rush?" Rep. Jim Milum said. "Let's phase this thing in."
"The trucking industry didn't tear up the highways overnight. We shouldn't expect to fix them overnight," added Rep. Doug Kidd, who said he once worked for a major trucking company that
olded under heavy competition and costs. "Just stop and think what it would do to you and your individual business."
Gov. Mike Huckabee, who earlier warned senators that any changes in fuel taxes could wreck the highway program, now says he's comfortable with either imposing the higher diesel tax immediately or phasing it in over time.
