Kate Brown, Senate Democrats abandon $343.5 million transportation funding deal

SALEM -- Democratic leaders said Thursday that they are abandoning a $343.5 million transportation package to pay for road fixes and public transit upgrades, ending a bitter standoff between House and Senate Democrats.

The plan -- drafted by a group of eight lawmakers through weeks of secret talks -- aimed to raise an additional $200 million a year in transportation funding through a 4-cent gas tax increase and other measures. But concerns over carbon reduction measures, diminished support in the House and a looming deadline for adjournment led Gov. Kate Brown and Senate President Peter Courtney to pull the plug Thursday morning.

"The governor called me last night and we spoke, and I made the decision this morning we could not get to the top of the mountain," Courtney told the Senate chamber. "It's over for this session, and we'll just keep working on it."

Brown, in a statement issued a little after 11 a.m., said there "simply isn't a path forward" through both the House and Senate, given the complexity of the deal and the Legislature's July 11 deadline to adjourn.

Brown and Senate leaders couldn't wrangle the three-fifths supermajority -- 18 votes in the Senate and 36 in the House -- needed to pass a transportation package and repeal the controversial clean fuels law that Brown signed March 12.

Since the beginning of the session, Republicans had promised to block a transportation package if Democrats pushed through the clean fuels bill, saying it would amount to a double gas tax increase for constituents in their mostly rural districts.

"From Day One, House Republicans were committed to crafting and passing a much-needed, bipartisan transportation package to fix our roads and bridges and improve public safety across our state," House Minority Leader Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, said in a statement. "However, the decision by legislative Democrats to prioritize a costly and ineffective government mandate, SB 324, over transportation needs ultimately doomed any chance of a comprehensive package."

In late May, Brown convened a bipartisan group of eight lawmakers to try to find a compromise. Last week, the group had agreed on framework to repeal the clean fuels law and replace it with new carbon reduction measures.

But it became clear the plan had little chance after 19 House Democrats vowed to torpedo the deal, seeking to uphold the clean fuels law.

"I want to sincerely thank my eight legislator colleagues for their hard work in pursuit of a single, bipartisan approach to achieving our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals and addressing critical transportation needs statewide," Brown said in her statement Thursday.

The plan's collapse a blow to Democrats, who had hoped their expanded majorities this session would put them closer to a deal on additional transportation revenue. It's also a blow for Brown, who had placed a transportation package near the top of her list of demands -- insisting after signing the clean fuels law, Senate Bill 324, that Oregon wouldn't have to choose between the two.

Among the new plan's key selling points was a promise that the alternative carbon measures would do more to reduce emissions than the clean fuels bill. But backing up that promise proved impossible.

The new plan's already-tenuous chances suffered Wednesday during the only public hearing on a framework of funding projects and carbon-reduction alternatives negotiated by senators. Environmental groups and others had loudly criticized the new plan, arguing that new estimates from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality double-counted reductions by including existing carbon measures.

Then came damning testimony from Oregon Department of Transportation Director Matt Garrett, who told lawmakers his agency overestimated the effect of traffic flow improvements contained in the package. The plan initially said those improvements would reduce emissions by 2.02 million metric tons over 10 years. The revised estimates sharply lowered that figure to 430,000 metric tons.

The new estimate threatened to bring the new plan's total carbon reduction below the clean fuels program's 10-year target of 7.7 million metric tons, giving more credence to claims by environmentalists and House Democrats that the plan wouldn't be as effective.

"For the governor to pull the plug at this point is unfortunate -- purely political," said Sen. Jeff Kruse, a Roseburg Republican and one of the original eight lawmakers who developed the proposal. "It became clear that nothing was going to pass the House."

Kruse added: "This was a pretty damn good piece of work we put together, and to see it all go to waste is a shame."

Sen. Chris Edwards, a Eugene Democrat who had been selected to chair a special Senate committee to consider the proposal, said the plan's unpopularity with the House was perhaps the biggest obstacle.

"I think it's a bridge too far to cross with too few days left," Edwards said. "It's created animosity between the House and Senate."

-- Ian K. Kullgren and Denis C. Theriault

503-294-4006

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.