"State legislators plan to wrestle with transportation funding proposals for the next seven weeks with no single likely agreed-upon solution in sight, a Charlottesville-Albemarle County League of Women Voters forum was told Friday.

Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., R-Mount Solon, poured cold water on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s nearly $1 billion annual funding package and Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, added a few ice cubes in his reaction to it.

“Right now we have people putting out different options, and quite frankly I don’t support most of what the governor proposed yesterday,” Hanger told the Boar’s Head Inn luncheon forum.

“In part, I don’t think it’s a politically viable proposition,” Hanger added.

Bell said, “I’m the one who is the most skeptical of the large tax proposal,” and explained that voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads had rejected regional bond issues for transportation by wide margins in November of 2002.

The General Assembly convenes Wednesday for a 46-day session that will debate transportation issues intensely and perhaps craft a funding compromise for substantial new sources of road and rail revenue, four state legislators said Friday.

None of the four said they favor every item in Kaine’s package, but each lawmaker said parts of the package could be merged with disparate House and Senate plans to create some form of compromise.

“For me, everything is on the table,” said Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County.

“I want compromise. I want a statewide plan” of about $1 billion a year in sustainable, long-term sources of revenue for transportation, Deeds said. “He’s given us a starting point.”

Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, agreed that there is broad consensus concerning the amount of money needed if not yet agreement on how to raise it.

“Unless we figure out a way to get more money in the pot for transportation by the year 2010 or 2011, we will be in a position where we can no longer access federal money for construction,” he said.

“I think there is broad consensus that we cannot pave our way out of this problem,” Toscano added. “I think we understand the importance of linking land use to transportation.”

Hanger agreed that about $1 billion a year is needed and suggested a 10-cent-a-gallon increase in the state’s gas tax as well as creation of tolling authorities and “appropriately placed user fees” as pieces of an eventual compromise.

A 10-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase could raise $500 million a year, Toscano said. An increase in the sales tax on new cars from 3 percent to 5 percent could yield another $360 million, he said before quickly adding, “Now I’m not saying we support all those things lockstep.”

No Child Left Behind

Bell and Hanger each criticized the federal No Child Left Behind education law.

Hanger drew substantial applause from 80 listeners when he said, “I want to continue the effort this year to try to get Virginia out from under that program. The best thing that could happen would be that the program itself be eliminated totally.”

“No Child Left Behind has made a hash out of [state education] testing,” Bell said. Either Virginia should get out from under its provisions or at least better integrate the testing with state tests, he said.

Subcommittee bill kills

Bell was asked about a new House of Delegates rule that allows bills to be killed in subcommittees without recorded votes and replied, “I like part of it and I don’t like part of it.”

The Republican subcommittee chairman said bills are given better hearings in subcommittees, making the committee process more efficient, but “we should do a better job of tracking those votes” and making them public.

Toscano agreed the new rule has improved efficiency but said, “I don’t like the idea that a good bill can be killed by simply three people in a room of five. I think most people don’t like that idea.”

Bell said the House could reexamine the rule next year." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, January 6, 2006)