House Speaker Robert DeLeo said he’s waiting to learn more about a regional vehicle emission reduction pact before deciding how it will fit into his plan for transportation.
But one of his top deputies said it hasn’t changed his mind about increasing the gas tax.
Transportation Committee Co-chair William Straus said in an interview that the House is still targeting January for a debate over how to raise more money for transportation, but he sees Gov. Charlie Baker’s pursuit of a multi-state, cap-and-invest program as something separate from those discussions.
The Transportation Climate Initiative, which is under negotiation between 11 states and the District of Columbia, could add up to 17 cents to the price of a gallon of gas and generate as much as $500 million for Massachusetts to reinvest in cleaner transit and climate change programs.
Straus said he’s not opposed to TCI, but doesn’t look at it as a substitute for some of the revenue options he and other House leaders have been studying since the spring. Meetings continued this week among top level House members developing the plan, and Straus said he hasn’t yet recommended a gas tax level.
“TCI, while it may be great for the environment, is not a transportation financing solution,” Straus told the News Service in an interview this week.
Straus said that unlike the gas tax he does not believe that Massachusetts will be able to borrow against future TCI revenue to finance long-term infrastructure projects.
“I don’t believe you can go to Wall Street and say you’re offering up as security a revenue stream that will be determined by market forces and will diminish over the next 30 years based on how successful we are,” Straus said.
He also said that policymakers would be missing the urgency of the moment if they relied on TCI funding that won’t start to flow until 2022 at the earliest.
“It’s not now and it’s not known or predictable,” Straus said. “If the priority is transportation financing that generates revenue into a continual restricted trust fund, I think this would benefit from more candor with the public.”
Critics, including the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and some Republican legislators, have panned the initiative as the equivalent of a gas tax hike, though supporters have rebutted that characterization. Baker has said he opposes an increase in the gas tax, but supports TCI as a market-based regional solution to reduce carbon emissions and generate money to invest in programs that will help the state meet its climate goals.
As part of his new budget proposal, filed Friday, Gov. Charlie Baker is seeing $18 million in additional funding for the MBTA to supplement $32 million granted by the legislature in the fiscal year 2019 closeout budget and enable the hiring of staff “to expedite the completion of capital projects, enable proactive inspections to detect and address safety and reliability issues before they impact service, and implement enhanced maintenance procedures to ensure the reliable operation of MBTA vehicles and infrastructure.”
