State lawmakers trying to hammer out deal raising Utah's gas tax


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SALT LAKE CITY — Drivers would pay 5 cents more per gallon in gas tax and counties would be able to ask voters to raise sales tax for transportation projects under a proposal state lawmakers are considering.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate agree the state needs more money to meet Utah's road and transit demands over the next 25 years. But they disagree how to do it.

Utah has an $11.3 billion shortfall in transportation funding through 2040.

"We're not fixing the whole problem," said Rep. Johnny Anderson, R-Taylorsville. "We're taking steps toward it."

A House committee passed Anderson's bill Tuesday that would transition the tax to a percentage of the average wholesale price of gas each year. HB362 would also allow counties to hold a public referendum to raise the general sales tax 0.25 percent, with all of the money going to local transportation needs.

The Senate, however, opposes the local option sales tax. Senators last week endorsed SB160 to raise the gas tax 10 cents a gallon and the diesel fuel tax 5 cents a gallon.

Anderson said the House is willing to go halfway with an immediate 5-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, along with moving to the percentage-based tax if the Senate would agree to the local option sales tax.

"We need to the local option. We need it desperately," Anderson told the House GOP caucus. "We will not give into them until they give into us."

Senate President Wayne Neiderhauser, R-Sandy, said lawmakers are getting close to a consensus on the gas tax. He said it was premature to talk about the details but that the final proposal would be a hybrid of the two approaches.

"I feel more optimistic about that than Medicaid expansion," Neiderhauser said.

Asked if there would be a 5-cent increase, House Majority Leader Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, said the bill "creates a formula" with an inflationary factor that could incorporate the 5-cent increase and the local option, and the increase would be on top of that formula.

House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, said, "I guess the blend that would be contemplated would be the 5 cents, but within the blend of converting that to a percentage."

Hughes said the most important thing for lawmakers to do on transportation funding is "find a way to see that formula minimally keep pace with inflation and the cost of gasoline, see that growth. But what we need to stop doing is losing money every year from the unit tax as the formula currently does."

Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche Email: romboy@deseretnews.com Twitter: dennisromboy

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