The Senate is now debating whether to concur with House amendments to the transportation budget.

Sen. Mike Carrell: “I will be voting against it for the same reason I did before,” he said — that Lakewood will be blocked off by rail. “It is a safety problem,” he said, because trains will block access to I-5 “dozens of times a day.”

Sen. Chris Marr: “Unless you have a plan, unless you agree and have consensus,” he said, then your regional project will not move forward. “I will tell you, if we’re talking about 520 or the Columbia Crossing that we will not be able to compete for federal funding … unless we have these kinds of discussions internally,” he said. He said the budget presents real solutions for some of those issues.

Sen. Joe Zarelli said the tolling issue — particularly at Columbia Crossing — should be reconsidered. He said southwest Washington should not be responsible for paying for the I-5 replacement bridge on its own via tolling, since people throughout Washington, Oregon and California depend on the highway for freight and travel.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said the project at Columbia Crossing is among the most important federal transportation projects — but there has to be a local match, and that means tolling. “We cannot depend completely on tolls. The Federal government needs to be a partner, Oregon needs to be a partner,” and so does Washington, she said. She said the Lakewood rail issue is a SoundTransit decision. “I’m not about to fix (SoundTransit’s) problems,” she said.

Update: The Senate concurred with the House amendments and passed the budget 37-11.

Tags: transportation budget

The House is debating the supplemental transportation budget. Find it here.

Rep. Judy Clibborn: “We have at least 3,000 new jobs in the supplemental budget. Good, family wage jobs,” she said. She said the budget includes $600 million for rail. “This is a good news budget in a bad economy and I can’t commend it to you more.”

Rep. Dan Roach: “I will be voting yes today. I think one of the good things again is that the bidding climate is very good for us,” he said. “I encourage people go to through line by line … at the end of the day, I think it’s an alright budget.”

Rep. Christine Rolfes: “We have some money in her to design our final, big (ferry) boat,” she said, and she’s thankful for that.

Rep. Mike Armstrong: “It is a good, solid, stable budget. It’s not much excitement, here,” he said. He said he’ll be voting yes.

Rep. Marko Liias: “This budget represents a lot of great work for the people of Washington,” he said.

The budget passed 78 to 18.

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Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen opened the transportation budget unveiling by saying the transportation budget isn’t about Republicans and Democrats. Sen. Dan Swecker spoke next, thanking Haugen for her bipartisanship.

“The process has always been open and fair and I want to thank her for that,” he said. “We just completed the largest construction season in Washington state history,” he said, and this budget will mean “staying on course.” Of the 391 projects funded since the “Nickel tax” in 2003, 241 have been completed, 54 are under construction and 21 will be advertised for construction in the next six months, he said.

Swecker said the 16-year plan will be about $1 billion short due to increased costs and decreased tax revenues.

Sen. Chris Marr said the average project is coming in about 17 percent under budget, which means more projects will be able to be built over time. He also said megaprojects without regional consensus will have a difficult time getting additional federal funding.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said this budget doesn’t have any new projects on it. She said it’s “truly a supplemental budget.” As for whether a gas tax will be considered next biennium, she said “everything is on the table.”

Sen. Dan Swecker, when asked about the federal stimulus, said he’s in favor of it. “When those calls went out for stimulus funds, we were ready,” he said. “They go into — directly — into jobs. That is exactly what the stimulus should do … while I may quibble about stimulus projects in other areas,” he said, he’s a fan of the transportation stimulus.

Haugen said most of the transportation stimulus projects were preservation jobs — she said those projects often aren’t the most popular.

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Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the $7.5 billion transportation budget — the largest two-year transportation budget in state history — today.

Read all about our it here and here.

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Today at 2 p.m., Gov. Chris Gregoire will be in Seattle signing the bill to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Tomorrow, she’ll be in Tacoma to sign the 2009-2011 transportation budget.

That budget is the largest ever transportation package in Washington’s history. Lawmakers estimate it will “support or create” nearly 50,000 jobs.

She’ll sign the bill — along with a bill to reduce pollution in construction — at 1:30 p.m. at the Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.

Want more information about the transportation budget? Here’s our previous coverage.

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Fresh off the operating budget, the Senate is debating the transportation budget.

Sen. Mike Hewitt said he’s voting for it, though he does have a few problems with it. “It’s a fairly good budget,” he said.

Sen. Dan Swecker kept it short: “Good bill (something about biofuel), short speech, vote yes.”

The Senate passed the budget.

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Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, who presides over the Senate, just delivered his ruling of whether allowing the Transportation Commission to set tolls constitutes a tax under I-960.

Here’s what he had to say: “The test is whether there’s a nexus between the charge to be paid and where the proceeds will be spent … the language from I-960 is far from a model of clarity,” he said. Speaking on further confusion, he said “The president need not decide this question, however, as ambiguities within an initiative are a matter of a court of law.”

He turned down the challenge, so it will not require a two-thirds vote. But, as you can see above, he said the language in I-960 will need to be clarified in court.

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Now, the Senate is talking about whether giving the Transportation Commission the authority to set tolls is a “tax” under 1-960.

“Taxes” and “fees” are different under I-960, but Sen. Val Stevens, who brought up the challenge, said the tolls would constitute a tax.

They’re going to go on with other amendments while Lt. Gov. Brad Owen comes up with a ruling.

Now, an amendment from Sen. Janea Holmquist. The amendment would restore money to the rail budget. Sen. Mark Schoessler said reducing the rail money constitutes “stealing.” But Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said the state is using some money from the fund because it’s been sitting unused. She said it won’t delay any projects.

The amendment failed.

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The Senate is getting ready to debate their transportation budget now — it’s live on TVW and tvw.org.

Refresh your page and I’ll update the debate here.

Sen. Mike Carrell is offering an amendment to remove the authority to set toll rates from the Transportation Commission.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said giving the commission the authority to set rates for tolls is merely in compliance with I-960, which prevents the Legislature from raising taxes without a two-thirds vote.

Sen. Pam Roach said giving away toll-setting authority is the Legislature’s way of shirking its duty. Sen. Chris Marr said the Transportation Commission has members from all over the state, and that they take a lot of public comment, so they’re better suited to set tolls. The debate continues!

The amendment failed. In his closing speech, Carrell said something along the lines of “failing to pass this amendment is voting to pass the buck.”

Here’s where to find the bill and all the amendments.

I’m now going to make a new post so it’s easier to follow along.

Tags: transportation budget

The press conference for the roll-out of the Senate transportation budget is on TVW now — or tvw.org, of course.

Right now, Sen. Fred Jarrett is discussing how to fund the transportation system. “We are seriously underfunding upkeep,” he said, among other things. He said the gas tax, the source of transportation funding, is undermined by encouraging public transportation, which he indicated isn’t logical.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen: “As disappointed as I am in rail … we believe we are in a good situation to get money from the federal stimulus… Rail is part of the future but unfortunately we had to give up some of our bonding capability” to the capital budget, she said.

Now, the questions.

To questions about the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement, Haugen said they mentioned it in the budget, which means the department can begin preliminary work. They won’t begin any boring for the “deep-bore” tunnel, she said — just the leg work.

This is from Sen. Jim Honeyford’s Twitter (I corrected the spelling from Twitter abbreviations): “Senate transportation budget DOES NOT close the Goldendale license office. Also includes $5 opt out on vehicle license fees to got to state parks.”

That “opt out” part is thought to be critical to saving parks because it is expected to net more than the current opt-in system, though Republicans at last week’s media availability characterized it as a tax (subject to I-960 challenges), since many people do not opt-out (perhaps because they don’t see the option).

Tags: transportation budget