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A new direction for transportation policy in the Texas Senate?
July 19, 2010
Austin American-Statesman - Ben Wear, Getting There
The news from the Capitol last week many Texas Senate committees got new chairmen, including the Transportation and Homeland Security Committee is the sort of classic inside-baseball political story that most real human beings take a pass on. Who cares which of 31 puffed-up potentates is handling which bills at the Capitol every two years?
Well, I can't necessarily promise to make you care. But in the case of the transportation committee, the replacement of state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, with state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, most certainly will make a difference.
Carona is that rare species in 2010 politics, a moderate Republican. During the past four years he has repeatedly called for an increase in the state gasoline tax, frozen at 20 cents a gallon since 1991. He failed in that effort. He also made something of a crusade in the 2009 session of a bill that would have allowed local governments to call elections asking voters to create a local gas tax, or other local fees, and spend the proceeds on roads or rail.
That legislation died in a bloody political conflagration in the session's final days.
But Carona, those quixotic attempts aside, has been highly effective during his two sessions as transportation chairman, alternately cuffing around Texas Department of Transportation officials and then making nice with them publicly after getting them to change direction. Carrying scores of transportation bills, passing many of them. Taking stands for what would work, even if it played badly in the blogosphere.
When the rest of the Legislature in 2007 and '09 was running headlong away from TxDOT's private toll road agreements, Carona was out there saying the state needed all the tools it could find to pay for transportation projects: higher taxes, both statewide and local; and tollways, both private and government-run.
Carona has been a transportation pragmatist.
Now, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst announced Wednesday, he'll have Carona chair the Business and Commerce Committee instead.
And Williams, who sat on the transportation committee for one term, in 2007, is its new chairman.
Williams made quite a stir in 2007, carrying and passing the main transportation bill, SB 792. That law did many things, including slap a moratorium on private toll road agreements. But mainly, from the point of view of Williams' friends on the Harris County Toll Road Authority, SB 792 told TxDOT to stop big-footing local toll road agencies.
Williams is more conservative than Carona, and it's a stretch to imagine him holding a news conference to call for raising the gas tax, or any tax, for that matter. So if Williams is not for more taxes, or private toll road payments, it's hard to see how TxDOT's increasingly dire funding situation will improve.
It's also hard to imagine Williams working anywhere near as well as Carona did with Austin's Democratic Sen. Kirk Watson, who has been vice chairman of the transportation committee the past two sessions and is close to Carona. But Watson said he has already reached out to Williams, and he plans to continue in the same role on the committee.
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Link to article here.
Senate committee shakeup: An indication that transportation won't get more $$$?
By Peggy Fikac
Houston Chronicle blog
July 14, 2010
If you need a good indication that state leaders won't do much to raise money for transportation in the coming session -- especially in light of a huge looming budget shortfall -- new Senate committee assignments may provide one.
At least, that's one reason a key senator said he welcomed his move.
State Sen. John Carona, a Dallas Republican who has sounded the alarm about a coming transportation funding crisis, is moving from chairman of Transportation and Homeland Security to leading the Business and Commerce Committee.
He'll be replaced as Transportation and Homeland Security chairman by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands.
It's part of a shakeup announced by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the wake of the departure of former Sen. Kip Averitt, a Waco Republican who headed the Natural Resources Committee. Retired Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell won a special election to serve out Averitt's term.
In naming Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, to replace Averitt as Natural Resources chairman, Dewhurst made other changes, including sliding Carona over to the Business and Commerce chairmanship formerly held by Fraser.
Carona said he'll continue to speak out on the transportation issue, but that he has long wanted to head Business and Commerce. He said he initially expressed the interest in the committee to Dewhurst, and that the lieutenant governor didn't force the move -- even though Carona has accused top GOP figures of lacking leadership.
Carona said by phone that he stands by figures showing the state will run out of money for new construction by 2012, but added, "There has been no indication yet that the Legislature is in a position to make this a top priority, and there's been no movement yet from the governor's office that would signal that he is going to be supportive of additional revenue for transportation or for any other purpose as we go into an $18 billion shortfall."
The senator said that's simply the "political reality we're facing."
"As much as I will continue to advocate for funding, and as much as I would like to see and believe that funding is needed now rather than later, I do not envision the Legislature making the choice to take any bold steps regarding transportation funding in the next session," Carona said, "and candidly, that too is one of the reasons leading me to believe that I could better serve the body in the Business and Commerce Committee."
Carona said he expects a strong role for Business and Commerce, predicting it will "begin to reclaim some of the issues that in recent years have drifted off to other committees" and could encompass "everything from insurance and telecommunications to banking and business issues as they relate to the tort issues that come before the Legislature."
Transportation and Homeland Security also would be expected to handle the immigration issue, as some push for Texas to mimic Arizona's law.
I have a call in to Williams to get his take on transportation and immigration issues.
UPDATE: Williams said in a statement: "It's very important we continue to improve our infrastructure and protect our citizens. I am humbled by the confidence the Lt. Governor has placed in me. We have hard work ahead of us, and I am ready to begin."
Dewhurst said in a statement: "As the Texas Department of Transportation begins the process of solving significant organizational and fiscal challenges, the Texas Senate requires a leader who will continue to keep our transportation infrastructure on track and our state moving forward. Senator Williams is a strong advocate for reducing congestion on our roadways by ensuring dependable revenues to construct and expand new highways and build a world-class transportation system."
UPDATE: Dewhurst just said on a conference call, "There's no question that we're going to need additional funds to build the roads we need."
Other new committee chairmanships announced by Dewhurst:
Administration - Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler.
Economic Development - Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte
Jurisprudence - Sen. Chris Harris, R-Arlington
Nominations - Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville.
Select Committee on Veterans Health - Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.
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Link to article here.
Transportation advocates surprised by change in committee chairman
Posted Thursday, Jul. 15, 2010
By GORDON DICKSON / Star Telegram
ARLINGTON -- Squeezing more dollars from the state budget for roads and rail lines in North Texas was already an iffy prospect, at best.
But the effort to raise those dollars may now be even tougher, after Metroplex leaders learned that state Sen. John Carona, the Dallas Republican who for four years championed their efforts in Austin, had asked to be removed as chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security committee.
"We'll have to regroup," Denton County Transportation Authority Chairman Charles Emery of Lewisville, who closely follows legislative issues, said during a break Thursday at a Regional Transportation Council meeting in Arlington. "I don't have a real good feel for it."
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst this week announced several changes of Senate leadership positions in advance of the 2011 legislative session that begins in January.
Carona, the transportation chairman since 2006, will become chairman of the Senate Business and Commerce committee. Taking Carona's place as chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security committee will be state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands.
Several North Texas officials took Carona's departure as a sign that efforts to increase state funding for transportation would be dead during the 2011 session and that his business experience would be more effective in his new committee.
Local-option elections
Carona did not return a call seeking comment.
Carona worked fiercely in 2009 to pass a bill that would have allowed metro areas to hold local-option elections and raise taxes for transportation, but the effort failed. Lawmakers have been very critical of how transportation funds are spent in the state and so far have not reached consensus on what sorts of fees -- if any -- should be raised to address the state's growing congestion problems.
Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said he was stunned to learn that Carona had resigned as chairman of the transportation committee.
"He has been a full, 100 percent partner with us," Morris said. "We're going to have to think through how we're going to proceed."
Legislative agenda
Despite the loss of Carona's leadership, RTC members Thursday debated several transportation-related pieces of legislation that they will consider supporting during the session. Among them would be provisions to:
Stop the diversion of motor-fuel taxes to non-transportation needs. In Texas, motorists pay a state gas tax of 20 cents per gallon, but a fourth of that money goes toward education. And millions of other dollars in the state's highway fund get diverted to non-highway projects.
Index the gas and diesel taxes to gradually increase over time, comparable to the cost of living -- and increase the tax by 10 cents per gallon.
Allow local-option elections so voters can decide if they want to raise car registration fees -- or mobility fees -- or fuel taxes.
Establish a "buy America" law to increase domestic involvement in private development of roads, an industry currently dominated by foreign companies. The Legislature has slammed the brakes on private development of toll roads, but many North Texas leaders want to change that law and allow private investment.
Strengthen buy-back provisions and eliminate non-compete clauses so that when a private developer is hired to build a toll road or other transportation project, Texans don't feel like their infrastructure is being sold off.
Buy-back provisions allow public agencies to buy back roads that have been leased to developers.
Non-compete clauses, which are opposed by many state leaders, are contract clauses that protect private road developers by prohibiting the Texas Department of Transportation from building a nontoll road in an area that would take business away from a toll road.
Several RTC members also called for a better effort in educating the public about how their existing dollars are being spent, and why more money is needed.
"We were effective in communicating with our legislators, but we didn't communicate our needs to the public," said RTC member and McKinney Councilwoman Gerayln Kever. "I think it's the public that's going to apply the pressure more than any one of us."
GORDON DICKSON, 817-390-7796