Transfer over Home Invoice 2025, there’s a brand new transportation invoice on the town. Because it seems the Democrats massive transportation invoice is lifeless within the water, there’s a scramble to stuff transportation coverage right into a separate invoice so as to come away with no less than one thing this session.
HB 3402 is a basic “intestine and stuff” — which means it was filed as a placeholder simply in case lawmakers wanted it. And boy do they ever as I’ve confirmed that HB 2025 doesn’t have the votes within the Senate to go.
So what’s in HB 3402? Right here’s what I do know thus far:
Efficiency audits on the State Freeway Fund and ODOT capital tasks as soon as each two years.
Modifications how the ODOT Director is appointed (by the Governor, as an alternative of the Oregon Transportation Fee). It is a comparatively ineffective clause that has been rightfully recognized as an “accountability charade” by Metropolis Observatory.
The invoice beefs up and clarifies the roster of an ODOT accountability advisory committee.
It provides the Joint Committee on Transportation authorized authority to “overview of scope, schedule adjustments, and finances updates of main tasks (these exceeding $250 million) on a quarterly foundation, in addition to of metropolis or county tasks of lower than $25 million with a requested price enhance of no less than 10 p.c and tasks exceeding $25 million the place the requested enhance is no less than 5 p.c.” This appears to me like a technique to take some authority away from the Oregon Transportation Fee and provides it to legislators.
Will increase the statewide fuel tax by three complete cents (LOL) — from 40 cents per gallon to 43 cents per gallon.
Will increase annual price for registration of passenger automobiles from $43 to $64.
Will increase car title price from $77 to $168.
All income from the above fuel tax and price will increase, an estimated $2.3 billion, will circulate on to ODOT.
That final provision is large, as a result of it means cities and counties could be completely zeroed out in new state funding. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has wasted no time in expressing his opposition to it: “After greater than a yr outlining the super want on the native stage, Home Invoice 3402-3 threatens to sideline native authority and transit priorities at a time when collaboration is most wanted,” he wrote in a press release at 2:00 pm as we speak.
Right here’s extra from Wilson:
“Portland operates Oregon’s second-largest transportation system, which helps thousands and thousands of individuals and items transferring out and in of the state. This invoice places that system in danger. It jeopardizes dozens of important metropolis infrastructure jobs and our means to carry out primary security features like filling potholes and implementing site visitors security enhancements.
We will’t afford a patchwork resolution. Legislators, please don’t go away Salem with out addressing crumbling metropolis transportation techniques. We’re calling on our state companions to lean into our shared dedication to constructing a resilient and future-ready transportation community for all Oregonians.”
The Metropolis of Portland’s finances for the Portland Bureau of Transportation is relying on $11 million from the state. That funding was anticipated to return from the state by way of a brand new transportation invoice — and this one gained’t do it.
Past not together with the 50/30/20 funding system that counties and cities depend on, HB 3402-3 consists of not one of the secure streets or transit funding that was in HB 2025. So far as I do know, the 0.1% payroll tax that funds transit (by way of the Statewide Transportation Enchancment Fund) which went into impact in 2018, doesn’t have a sundown date. It was proposed to go as much as 0.3% in HB 2025. Transit businesses throughout Oregon have made it clear that with out a rise, they might make important service cuts.
In a publish on Bluesky as we speak, The Road Belief urged their followers to oppose the invoice. The group’s govt director Sarah Iannarone wrote that, “After a yr of consensus constructing, lawmakers are about to go HB 3402, a last-minute invoice that retains the lights on at ODOT and turns them off for everybody else.”
Right here’s extra from Iannarone and The Road Belief:
“This isn’t a transportation package deal. It’s a determined procedural maneuver that prioritizes a single company’s quick time period wants over the general public good – jeopardizing security, mobility entry, and fairness. It does nothing to handle the rising site visitors violence on our streets, the erosion of vital transit lifelines, or the shortage of secure infrastructure for individuals strolling, biking, rolling, and counting on public transportation.”
Additionally notable about HB 3402-3 is that it consists of no devoted funding for key freeway megaprojects that stay unfinished just like the I-5 Rose Quarter, Abernethy Bridge, I-205 widening, and so forth. These tasks have been funded in HB 2017 and there was very robust political will to finish them. Whereas this new invoice doesn’t embody set-aside funding for them, since all new income would go to ODOT, the company might resolve to spend it on them. Nevertheless, it seems that because the invoice provides the JCT oversight of ODOT challenge spending, that call may very well be extra political than the company is used to.
ODOT helps HB 3402-3. In a letter despatched as we speak to members of the Home Committee on Guidelines, ODOT Director Kris Strickler stated the invoice is an “interim step to take care of some stage of ODOT’s operations and upkeep features for the 2025-27 biennium.”
HB 3402-3 is scheduled for a public listening to within the Home Committee on Guidelines at 3:45 pm as we speak. That committee consists of two of the loudest voices who opposed HB 2025 — its Vice-Chair Rep. Christine Drazan and Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis. (Be aware: I’m listening to it will likely be moved to Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment.)
UPDATE, 8:05 pm: HB 3402-3 has handed the Home Guidelines Committee with a party-line vote of 4-3 and can now transfer to the Home ground for a vote. The invoice would elevate $2.0 billion from a mixture of a three-cent fuel tax enhance and registration and title price will increase.
UPDATE, 6/28 at 9:00 am: The legislative session has adjourned and 3402-3 didn’t go. It didn’t obtain a vote on the Home ground.
