Gov. Dimbulb takes another shot in the chin on the CRC Scam: House rip off package a NO GO.

Washington State Wire sounds more of the funeral dirge for the CRC Scammers.
Posted April 16th, 2013

Transportation Debate Snarled by Columbia River Crossing – New $8 Billion Tax Proposal to be Unveiled Today, but Senate Says Bridge Goes Too Far
Could be Major Defeat for Inslee – Transportation Budget Also at Stake

By Erik Smith
Washington State Wire

At 176 feet, the Interstate Bridge at Vancouver currently offers plenty of clearance for river users.

OLYMPIA, April 16.—An effort to promote a gas-tax increase for road projects this year appears to be in deep trouble because of Senate opposition to a bridge project at Vancouver, and the clash could deliver a decisive defeat for Gov. Jay Inslee.

Heavy lobbying from Inslee doesn’t seem to be overcoming resistance from fiscally conservative Senate lawmakers to the Columbia River Crossing. Those from the Vancouver area maintain the new bridge is fatally flawed in politics, design and financing, and they say Clark County residents will wind up paying the price. Even as House Transportation Chair Judy Clibborn prepares to roll out an $8 billion tax proposal today that would include $450 million for the project, Senate leaders say that if it includes the bridge, its already iffy chances are reduced to nothing. “What we are telling them is that if the CRC is connected, there is zero chance of the state having a revenue package,” says Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina.

Clibborn says she plans to move forward nevertheless – thus forcing lawmakers to make a decision one way or another. And it is an indication of the way things have blown up in a statehouse where transportation rarely is a matter of major contention. Clibborn says the only way this one might be settled is for the House and Senate to fight it out. “I am sending it over, and if they want to take the CRC out, they will have to do it on their side,” she says. “That is their problem.”

Also imperiled is the passage of the state’s transportation budget. Votes have been delayed for more than a week in the House and Senate because the normally non-controversial spending bill includes planning money for the bridge project. In an effort to break the logjam, Gov. Inslee has been pulling out the stops in recent days, even bringing federal transportation secretary Ray LaHood to Washington state to talk tough to the Republican-leaning Senate majority. So isn’t just the bridge that is on the line, it is also the governor’s prestige – and the battle of the bridge provides the biggest test yet of his leadership ability.

Ten-Cent Gas-Tax on Horizon

Clibborn reviews amendments to the transportation budget that have been laid on the bar of the House. A vote on the House budget was contemplated Monday evening but was canceled at the last minute due to controversial amendments.

Clibborn will present a transportation tax proposal today that represents a considerable scaling-back of the $10 billion plan she advanced in February. The new proposal retains its signature feature, a ten-cent gas tax increase that will be fully implemented over the course of 10 years. But it ditches the most controversial elements – a tax on sales of new bicycles, an increase in the state’s hazardous substance tax, and reimposition of the state’s motor vehicle excise tax – the license-tab tax rejected by voters with a pair of initiatives more than a decade ago. It also offers a more-refined list of projects that would be funded by the taxes – with the aim of convincing every lawmaker that his or her district has something to gain.

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It might as well have been a 10,000 cent gas tax: their stubborn insistence on funding the idiocy of the CRC Scam killed this thing before it ever saw the light of day.