Abusive Driver Fees & Transportation - August 31, 2007
Over the last several weeks, I have received much correspondence about the Transportation bill (HB 3202) passed by the General Assembly and about the so-called “abuser fees,” or civil remedial fees.
As you may know, HB 3202 was a hundred plus page bill designed to address transportation in the Commonwealth. The abuser fee section was about 3 pages of this bill, and it was incorporated at the request of Republican legislators, primarily in Northern Virginia, who were aware that the Republican controlled General Assembly would not approve tax increases for the funding of additional road projects throughout the Commonwealth. To that end, they introduced separate bills in the last session to create these fees, and they were successful incorporating these provisions into HB 3202.
The Abuser Fee approach is bad policy and may be unconstitutional. It is bad policy because it is an attempt to partially fund our long term transportation needs through a source which does not raise enough money and is not reliable. It may be unconstitutional because it applies only to Virginia drivers. And it will have the unintended consequence lead more Virginians to drive on suspended licenses brought because they are unable to pay the fees.
Ironically, the monies projected by this measure could be exceeded simply by increasing our state gasoline tax by $0.02 per gallon ($100 million in new revenue), an action that leads all users of our roads, including non-Virginians, to pay for their construction and maintenance.
I have never believed that the Civil Remedial Fees would either create the kind of revenue that we need to adequately fund our transportation initiatives in the Commonwealth. And they are too draconian in their focus. As you may know, I voted against HB 3202 when it was initially before the House of Delegates. The bill was passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and sent to the Governor. Governor Kaine then amended the bill in many different ways. He did not, however, fundamentally alter the Civil Remedial Fees. When the bill returned to the House and the Senate, we were placed in the position of passing the bill in total, with both its negative and positive elements, or rejecting the bill and having no transportation plan whatsoever. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which included the fact that provisions in the bill dramatically increased funding for transit operations and increased the amount of funding for secondary road improvements, both of which greatly benefit Charlottesville and Albemarle, I voted for the bill that included the Governor’s amendments. That being said, I do not support the level of the civil remedial fee portion of the bill I will support efforts to repeal and/or modify it.
In the long run, we will still need to develop a reliable source of revenue that can serve our long term transportation needs. We will not get that from “abuser fees.”
In the next session, I will support efforts to repeal and/or modify these fees. And I will further support efforts to fund a transportation system based on a reliable and fair source or revenue.
