Ore. Senate OKs Gas Tax Bill

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - With a little arm-twisting by Gov. John Kitzhaber, the Oregon Senate approved a bill Saturday to boost the state gasoline tax and auto license fees to raise money for highway expansion and repairs.

Senators objected to parts of the 5-cent-a-gallon gas tax hike package, including a provision to repeal the weight-mile tax that's imposed on commercial trucks in lieu of a gas tax.

However, the Senate voted 18-10 in favor of the gas tax bill as a way to keep it alive so that it might be further changed before the 1999 legislative session adjourns.

Just before the vote, Sen. Frank Shields came into the chamber wearing a neck brace and with his arm in a sling - both of them for theatrical effect - to show that he had just been lobbied by Kitzhaber to vote "yes."

"He said, `This bill is a piece of crap. Please vote for it,'" the Portland Democrat said of his meeting with the governor.

Kitzhaber called various senators into his office Saturday to tell them that he, too, opposed a repeal of the weight mile tax but that any chance of a gas tax passing depended on the Senate voting to keep the package alive.

The gas tax bill, which now returns to the House for further action, marks the latest effort by Kitzhaber and others to raise money to fix crumbling roads and expand the highway system to ease congestion.

The House earlier voted for a 6-cent-a-gallon hike in the gas tax, which now stands at 24 cents a gallon, but the Senate trimmed the increase to 5 cents. Both versions include a $10 increase in

he two-year vehicle registration fee.

The biggest change the Senate made was to repeal the weight-mile tax on truckers and replace it with a diesel fuel tax.

Truckers have been trying for years to get rid of the weight-mile tax, saying it is costly and cumbersome to administer.

But Oregon Automobile Club and others say basing truck taxes on weight and travel is the best way to compensate for trucks' wear on the road system.

Although the gas tax package is still in play after Saturday's Senate vote, its ultimate fate is in doubt.

House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass, R-Boring, has said she doesn't see much support in the House for repealing the weight-mile tax.

And Sen. Marylin Shannon, the Senate Transportation Committee chairwoman who has been strongly advocating getting rid of the weight-mile tax, said she won't bend on that issue.

"The package is dead if you take out my piece," the Brooks Republican said.

The gas tax bill is HB2082.