Law outlines strategy to fund transportation

AUGUSTA – Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, chairman of the Transportation Committee, said he was “very relieved” that the Act to Secure Maine’s Transportation Future became law this weekend.

Damon on Saturday called the new law, derived from LD 1790, a comprehensive way to fund roads, bridges, trains, airplanes and cargo boats.

“It addresses all of it,” said Damon, the bill’s author. “I refer to it as the most important transportation legislation to surface in the last 50 years.”

Gov. John Baldacci, in announcing the new law Friday, said the act develops a mechanism for a comprehensive capital improvement program, measurable goals and long-term funding.

“I fully support this bill and am pleased that it will finally become law,” he said in a news release Friday. “It will give the Maine Department of Transportation new and necessary tools to maintain our state’s vital transportation infrastructure.”

Although passed by the Legislature in June, the bill contained a technical error that would have left the highway fund budget unbalanced in fiscal year 2009, the governor stated. Because by state law the budget must be balanced, the governor could not sign the bill into law in June.

Because the constitutional time frame for the governor to sign the bill expired 10 days after the Legislature ended in June, Baldacci had two options remaining: allowing the bill to become law without his signature or vetoing the legislation.

“I have no intention of standing in the way of this good piece of legislation,” the governor said. “I support it and would gladly sign it if allowed by the Constitution.”

The law took effect on Saturday, and the technical error will be corrected within the supplemental highway budget, which will be submitted to the Legislature this session, Baldacci said.

The correction will take effect 90 days after the end of the current legislative session, scheduled for April 30.

Damon said the technical error was the result of an oversight that occurred while the Transportation Committee was trying to find a way to fund then-LD 1790.

“We had a plan to take a penny from the sales tax on vehicles and apply it to our Highway Fund,” Damon said. “But Sen. [Peggy] Rotundo [D-Lewiston] of Appropriations wanted to leave that penny in for the General Fund.

“It’s a good thing we did leave it in the General Fund because of our $95 million shortfall,” he added.

Damon said the 1-cent funding proposal was removed from the bill, but it was inadvertently left in the accompanying work with the budget mechanism. The other four pennies from the vehicle sales tax would have gone into the General Fund and left an imbalance in the budget, Damon explained.

Transportation officials are faced with finding long-range funding for the state’s roads and bridges at an estimated cost of $2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars over the next 20 years, Damon said.

Much of the state’s revenue for funding work on highways and bridges comes from the 28.8-cent per gallon gas tax and 27.9-cent per gallon diesel fuel tax. As people drive less in response to higher gas prices, or as they buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, fuel tax revenues have fallen behind DOT needs, Damon said.

In addition, steel and concrete prices have risen rapidly in the world market over the past two years, he said. Two years ago, there was a 35 percent increase in cost of construction. Last year, the cost of construction rose another 15 percent for a 50 percent increase in construction costs over two years, Damon said.

“What’s good about this new law – while it still lacks a funding mechanism – is that it sets goals and oversight to long-term transportation funding,” said Damon, who hopes to revive the penny tax idea from the sale of vehicles later this year.

State Rep. Richard Cebra, R-Naples, Transportation Committee member, called the new law a “great first step.”

“I’m encouraged that the governor has acknowledged the need for a long-term funding strategy for our transportation,” he said.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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