In The News

Pennsylvania governor pleas for transportation funding

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Gov. Ed Rendell on Monday renewed his plea for the Legislature to cut short its summer vacation and try to reach an election-year consensus on increasing funding for highway, bridge and transit projects.

At a Capitol news conference Monday, the governor said he will ask party leaders to call lawmakers back by Aug. 23 — several weeks earlier than currently scheduled — to resume a special session that he called in May.

“I believe we’re going to need more time than the days that are scheduled in September and October to do this,” he said.

The Democratic governor plans to appear before the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday and said he will provide members with lists of projects in their districts that won’t be completed if lawmakers fail to come up with the $472 million a year that never materialized after the federal government in 2008 scuttled a plan to put tolls on Interstate 80.

Rendell said he also will identify additional local projects that would be possible if the Legislature provides $3.5 billion in additional funding that the state’s transportation advisory committee has said is needed.

The governor, whose original proposals to tax major oil companies’ profits and lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike have gone nowhere, said Monday he would support a grab bag of tax and fee increases to make up the I-80 toll revenue.

Increasing transportation fees, such as those for driver’s licenses and registrations and boosting the gasoline tax by about 3 cents a gallon would raise the $472 million, he said.

The Senate is scheduled to reconvene Sept. 20 — a week after the House —and hold sessions for portions of three weeks before the Nov. 2 election. The transportation committee is in the process of holding hearings on the funding issue.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi has left open the possibility of scheduling additional legislative days prior to Sept. 20 “if there is a need,” but no funding plan has majority support in either chamber so far, said his spokesman, Erik Arneson.

Pileggi, R-Delaware, said this month that he detects a growing desire among lawmakers to put off the transportation debate until after a new governor takes the oath in January.

Rendell, who is required by law to step down when his second term ends in January, said that would only delay maintenance work and deprive the state’s economy of many badly needed jobs.

Republican candidate for governor Tom Corbett, the front-runner in a recent independent poll by Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University, has signed a pledge to oppose any tax increases, but has not ruled out increases in other state levies, including motor-vehicle fees. Democratic nominee Dan Onorato has taken no such pledge.

Kevin Jones of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at [email protected].

www.theTrucker.com