As Washington State lawmakers moved into a third special session Sunday, Gov. Jay Inslee in a statement signalled he would back off his administration’s proposed low carbon fuel standard in return for Republican votes needed in the Senate to pass a 16-year, $15 billion surface transportation investment package. A gas tax hike of 11.7 cents per gallon has been part of the Senate GOP majority draft law.
A state operating budget was close to being finalized, when Inslee stated Sunday morning, “I’ve been fighting to get a transportation package since my first day in office and now is the time for the Legislature to act. The state needs a transportation package and lawmakers have negotiated a bipartisan proposal that is nearly ready to be voted on. The current bill has a poison pill that pits clean air against transit. I oppose that and have worked hard to find a better alternative. But legislators tell me it is essential to passing the $15 billion multi-modal transportation package…” The package would include authorization of an ask to voters for more funds for Sound Transit light rail expansion.
The Governor continued, “I will sign the bill even with this provision because of the jobs, safety improvements and traffic relief that the investments would provide. I urge legislators to finish the job and pass this package by Tuesday so I can sign it as soon as possible.”
Inslee was referring to what Washington GOP Senators and industry allies have termed a “consumer protection clause” in the Senate Republican Majority’s transportation revenue package. Passed in the Senate in early March it included language – referred to by Democrats as a “poison pill” – that would have redirected $700 million in transit revenues to roads if Inslee were to follow through on intentions to institute a clean fuel standard by executive order, and an attendant Department of Ecology rulemaking process.
In a statement of their own, Republicans responded positively to Inslee’s move. Sen. Curtis King, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and Sen. Joe Fain, vice chair of the transportation budget, said:
“We appreciate the difficult decision the governor has made and applaud him for not allowing a single issue to stand in the way of achieving these important investments in Washington’s transportation future. As work continues to resolve the final details of a new transportation revenue package we have never been more optimistic about its success.”
The deadline for all action is the end of the current fiscal year at midnight Wednesday, July 1.
Said State Rep. Hans Zeiger (R-25), a House transportation committee member, “I’m anticipating (operating) budget votes Sunday or Monday, and then quick action after that on the capital and transportation budgets. There are very few people who really want to take the vote on transportation…but I think there’s a will among the negotiators” to get it done. The biggest remaining transportation issue, said Zeiger in a Saturday afternoon phone interview, had been the fuel standard.
As we reported Friday, a failure to rescind a clean fuel standard jammed through by Oregon Democrats and Gov. Kate Brown in March led late last week to the collapse of a transportation revenue package in Salem, and was complicating similar efforts in Washington.
The program approved in Oregon, and which had been eyed in Washington, is based on California’s, which seeks to lower the carbon intensity of fuels used in the transportation sector by 10 percent over 10 years, either through the blending with unleaded or diesel of lower carbon biofuels or ethanol; or through the purchase by legacy fuel makers of carbon credits from green fuels manufacturers.
Fuel standard opponents in Washington and Oregon object to likely pump price hikes from a clean fuel standard, although LCFS supporters such as the nonprofit Climate Solutions, argue that consumers are already acclimated to wide price variances, and air quality and climate issues tied to transportation require serious policy interventions.
LCFS opponents in both states have made clear they do support a range of carbon-reducing alternatives. A broad menu of introduced legislation exists in Washington including measures to incentivize clean energy investment such as green commercial truck and vehicle fleets, and to boost green vehicle infrastructure. Growth in congestion reduction spending and programs is another approach some lawmakers like.
Other options being discussed by stakeholders in either Oregon or Washington include a clean fuels standard being applied only to new fleet stock, not existing; or cutting the 10 percent in 10 years provision of a LCFS to five percent in 10 years; or taking out the carbon credits purchasing provision for fuel makers who can’t continue to meet the ascending standards.
The Washington transportation budget package which Inslee – and many in industry and labor – hope lawmakers will pass before Tuesday turns into Wednesday, may in the end include several green transportation bills. But more sweeping steps to institute an altered fuel standard palatable to oil, trucking, utilities and other industries with major investments in ground transport, would now appear not likely until after a time-out.
Yet the most vocal green transportation advocates have other tools at their disposal. And to their advantage, the policy debate is unfurling piecemeal, rather than in any seriously unified manner.
For one thing, organizers are gathering signatures for a carbon tax ballot initiative in Washington that would face voters in the very same fall, 2016 election which will also pit Inslee against likely GOP opponent Bill Bryant. That election will see a full-throated GOP bid to overtake the thin majority held by Democrats in the State House, as they already have done in the Senate.
Then, there is vehicle mileage tax concept gaining traction in the West.
It’s widely acknowledged that traffic congestion plays a big role in transportation sector carbon emissions. The mileage charging scheme, now called a “road user charge” in Washington, has earned a closer look because continuing gains in vehicle fuel efficiency, and a failure to index to inflation have rendered state and federal per-gallon gas taxes increasingly ineffective against a huge infrastructure work backlog.
At the root of that is several decades of dramatic growth in vehicle miles travelled, only in recent years beginning to level off.
A vehicle mileage tax could be coordinated between states, and calibrated to incentivize drivers through price variances to avoid peak hour travel and overcrowded roads. This could greatly ease traffic congestion and its contribution to carbon emissions.
But it’s fraught with complications. To be politically viable, a VMT would have to be made bindingly revenue-neutral. That could be done in several ways theoretically, but not via a lowered and capped gas tax, at least for 16 years. That’s because the new transportation package in Washington would have a 16-year life dependent on the gas tax hike of 11.7 cents per gallon.
A VMT program could be further sweetened with financial incentives such as lower insurance rates and city parking charges for lower-mileage drivers, and particularly with lower per-mile “road use” charges if drivers travel during off-peak hours or on less congested routes. Onboard GPS allows the most robust and responsive policy, but would require strict privacy protections. That’s do-able, experts say – but also politically charged.
Aligning more closely with Washington and Oregon, California will under approved law begin a voluntary pilot test of a VMT by January 2017. The three states are not alone. Twelve state transportation departments in all have banded together in the Western Road Usage Charge Consortium. The group this spring contracted with D’Artagnan Consultants for a detailed four-year study on coordinating mileage charge policy across borders. The global firm’s blue-chip roster of experts includes Jeff Doyle, formerly WSDOT’s director of Public-Private Partnerships.
For now, though, in Washington all eyes are on the legislature and the hoped-for transportation spending deal. Under draft terms of the agreement there would reportedly be no LCFS any sooner than eight years from now. That GOP position emerged last week in talks between the party’s Senate transportation leadership and Inslee.
Matt Rosenberg is a Seattle-based editor and writer. He’s been a regular op-ed contributor to The Seattle Times; Senior Editor for Mozilla’s The Open Standard; Editor-in-Chief for the Washington Business Alliance; Founder and Editor of Public Data Ferret; a Senior Fellow at Cascadia Center for Regional Development; and an environmental organizer in suburban Chicago and south King County. Email: mattr.wsw@gmail.com
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