The House on Friday passed an omnibus transportation finance bill that would rely heavily on borrowing and General Fund dollars to increase state spending by roughly $2 billion on roads and bridges over the next two years.
Passed, as amended, on a 76-54 vote, HF861, its Republican backers say, will give the state’s roads and bridges a badly needed infusion of construction funding and will rein in metro area plans for new rail lines. It’s part of $5.9 billion in proposed transportation appropriations in the 2018-19 budget.
Critics, however, argued the bill represents another short-term approach to transportation funding that pits roads, bridges, buses and trains against health care and schools, attacks metro area transit and borrows too heavily to meet the state’s road infrastructure needs.
The legislation would boost road and bridge funding by roughly $2 billion over the next two years, in part, by moving an estimated $450 million in transportation-related sales tax revenues that currently go into the General Fund into a new transportation fund. It would also utilize more than $1 billion in trunk highway borrowing and introduce an annual $75 fee on electric vehicles.
“We have the funds available to put together a robust transportation bill right now,” said Rep. Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska), chair of the House Transportation Finance Committee and the bill’s sponsor “And we should do it using the resources that are available.”
Torkelson praised the Republican approach of finding ways to grow transportation funding without raising the gas tax. That’s the approach that has been favored by DFLers and Gov. Mark Dayton, who have said it would create a more sustainable, long-term injection of new funding.
Measures that would redirect the already-collected, transportation-related tax revenues from the General Fund into a new transportation account were amended out of the bill in committee and passed Thursday as part of the omnibus tax bill.
In all, Republicans say the plan passed Friday would raise an additional $6 billion for roads and bridges over the next decade.
DFLers derided those funds as simply a shift in existing dollars rather than new funding for transportation.
“There is not one dollar of new, dedicated funding for transportation,” said House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park).
HF861 now goes to the Senate. There, Sen. Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson), sponsors an omnibus transportation finance bill, SF1060, that was passed 38-28 Thursday and then tabled.
Impacts on transit
DFLers saved some of their harshest criticism for measures that would cut $53 million in base funding to the Metropolitan Council for transit service, and would end longstanding state assistance for transit operations and maintenance.
Metro Transit officials have said those funding reductions would mean deep cuts — in the neighborhood of 40 percent — to regular route bus service that is the backbone of the transit system.
House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin (R-Rogers) said the DFL has “prioritized trains” during transportation talks in recent years, and Torkelson said he believes those estimates to be exaggerated.
WATCH Omnibus transportation finance is introduced on the House Floor
But a number of DFL members disagreed, characterizing the bill as an attack on urban transit that would harm the Twin Cities metropolitan area and the state as a whole.
“I’ve seen a lot of bad transportation bills in my day that cut deeply into transit,” Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL-Mpls) said during a morning news conference. “But, nothing like this.”
Transit policy measures
HF861 also includes a number of policy provisions that take direct aim at Metropolitan Transit operations, and current and future metro area light-rail transit projects.
Proposed transit and regional governance policy measures in the bill include:
What else is in the bill?
Other policy measures
The bill also includes a number of other policy proposals, including some that would:
Amendments
Amendments adopted on the House Floor include: