(The Center Square) – Although bills proposing a road usage charge failed to clear their original committees prior to last Friday’s legislative cutoff date, one ranking House Transportation Committee member is saying “not so fast” on their fates.
House Bill 1921 sponsored by House Transportation Chair Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, calls for a RUC program that initially is voluntary and then later becomes incrementally mandatory for vehicles based on their fuel efficiency. The starting rate for the RUC would be 2.6 cents per mile, with a 10% additional fee that would be available for multimodal funding. The program would only apply to vehicles of 10,000 lbs. or less.
While the fiscal cutoff date isn’t until Friday, at which point bills need to have cleared either House Appropriations or Senate Ways & Means, bills considered “necessary to implement the budget” can be passed after regular cutoff dates, which could apply to either bill.
Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Chehalis, is the ranking minority member on House Transportation. He told The Center Square that while HB 1921 has stalled in the legislative process, “I would not be surprised if there wasn’t some version of it somewhere [passing], maybe a very watered down version or continuing the pilot program.”
The bills are the latest legislative proposals for the creation of an RUC to ostensibly replace the state gas tax due to increased fuel efficiency and the planned transition toward electric vehicles in the transportation sector. Under the Senate version of the RUC, the gas tax would remain in place as the RUC is implemented, and drivers who subject to the RUC would be able to deduct the gas tax.
Although the idea has been studied for more than a decade and tested through a pilot program, the concept has been dogged by chronic challenges such as how to accurately track mileage driven while satisfying concerns over driver privacy and data security, as well as disagreements over how the revenue is to be spent. Under the bills, RUC revenue would be deposited into the same state account as gas tax, which under the state constitution’s 18th Amendment is restricted for use only on state highway projects. Many transit advocates have argued that RUC revenue should have greater flexibility in how it can be spent.
Although Fey’s proposal allows driver’s to simply report mileage annually when renewing their vehicle tabs rather than have a tracking device installed in their vehicle, the bill still received overwhelming opposition during its public hearing, a fact noted by Barkis in a video posted on X.
Barkis said one issue he sees with the proposal is that it leaves a lot to be figured out later.
“You would think that here we are all these years later, that would you have a product that comes into place and – boom – all those questions would be answered,” he said.
He added that “I have been saying since day one I’m not opposed to the concept,” but how it’s implemented. “It has to be 18th Amendment protected.”
The Center Square reached out to Fey for comment on the status of HB 1921, but did not receive a response.
