Forest industry bills seek relief Fuel tax rebate among 4 proposals to be heard by Legislature

Four bills aimed at offering some relief to forest industry workers burdened by high diesel fuel costs, including a temporary repeal of the state’s 28 cent a gallon fuel tax, have been proposed and will be heard by early March, state legislators said Tuesday.

Of the four, the fuel tax rebate proposed by state Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono, likely will face the greatest opposition. If enacted, it could cost the state as much as $750,000 in lost revenues per month, she said.

“I am going out there [to the Legislature] with optimism because I have to,” Schneider said Tuesday. “To me, this has to be done, but I am not unrealistic about what I am competing against.”

Schneider’s bill proposes a retroactive rebate on the fuel tax for forest industry haulers and machinery from Jan. 1 to April 1, she said. David Farmer, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci, doubted the bill would succeed without a funding mechanism that could return at least some money to state coffers.

“You’re talking about a time where we have a revenue shortfall that we have to close,” Farmer said Tuesday, “and we suspect that more bad news is on the way. Any type of new spending we have to look at carefully.”

Schneider agreed.

“I would like to see it go through, but every day we get more bad news,” she said.

The rebate, which several state representatives have pledged to oppose, was the most ambitious idea proposed by the Coalition to Lower Fuel Prices in Maine, a grass-roots political effort to help Mainers cope with rising fuel prices, particularly independent truckers.

The truckers are the connective tissue of the state’s forest products industry, hauling product from woods to mills to market. The industry is worth an estimated $11 billion to Maine’s economy annually.

Higher diesel prices – about a dollar more a gallon than last year – have caused at least 50 independent haulers to park their trucks, sparking fears that a lack of trucks could create a lack of raw materials for mills, according to the coalition.

Another bill, to be co-sponsored by Baldacci and Schneider, would repeal sales tax on all forest products machinery, repairs and supplies bought by forest industry workers and companies. Rep. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, seeks an axle-weight increase of 5,000 pounds on the total amount forest industry truckers can haul, while Rep. Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, seeks a restructuring of the system by which the state levies fines against truckers.

All are due to be introduced within the next two weeks and, if all goes well for proponents, could be signed into law by the end of March.

On Tuesday, coalition co-founder Belinda Raymond of Kingman counseled patience.

“It’s all steps. You take small steps with these things,” Raymond said. “As much as we would like to push, push, push, we have to be patient, and we have found that within our legislative representatives, the ones we have dealt with, there still are warriors who are actually willing to stand up for common people.

“At a time when everything seems to be falling apart, they are willing to put their necks out there,” she added, “because if our industry goes down, the state will really be hurting.”

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