Support for gas tax hike drops with higher fuel prices (Contra Costa Times)

By Denis Cuff
Contra Costa Times
June 19, 2008

Rising gas prices have soured support for the idea of imposing a 10-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax in the Bay Area to fight global warming by paying to expand public transit or reduce traffic congestion, according to a new poll by the region's transportation commission.

Only 37 percent of the 3,602 people polled in May said they would support or likely support the dime tax if it were placed before them on the ballot, according the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a nine-county agency.

Back in October, before gasoline prices soared above $4 a gallon, 69 percent of Bay Area residents polled said they would support a tax to pay for measures to fight global warming gases. A gas tax currently requires a two-thirds approval by voters, although a bill facing heated opposition in the California Legislature would reduce the passage threshold to a simple majority.

The new poll found that high gas prices are fueling the resistance to higher gas taxes. Some 44 percent of those polled picked "already too expensive" gas prices as their top concern about a gas tax. The average price for regular gasoline in the East Bay on Monday was $4.56 a gallon, which includes an 18-cents-per-gallon state tax and an 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal tax.

"I think the poll shows we should not be looking at higher fees or taxes on gasoline right now," said Amy Worth, an Orinda city councilwoman and member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "People are really feeling the pain of these huge spikes in gas prices."

Worth said action is needed to get more people to use public transit and to get out of motor vehicles, which account for about half of the carbon dioxide and other global warming gases generated in the Bay Area.

But she said political leaders' top priority should be fighting to preserve state public transit funding, which is in danger of being cut in the current state budget negotiations. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier this year proposed cuts in basic state funding to public transit agencies, but Democratic legislators have resisted.

"We need to focus on hanging onto our state money for public transit while ridership is rapidly increasing," Worth said, "rather than spend energy on gas tax measures that have little chance of passing."

Discussions about raising gas taxes have picked up in California as transportation and pollution managers consider the difficult challenge in complying with a landmark 2006 state law that requires a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

While cleaner gas and engine requirements will help to meet the law, it will take other measures such as getting more people to ride trains, buses and frries, and building housing near transit stations, transit commission staff members say.

A bill by state Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, would make it easier to pass county or regional ballot measures to raise gas taxes or vehicle license registration fees to reduce greenhouse gases, but the proposal is meeting resistance in the Legislature.

SB 445 would lower the passage threshold from two-thirds approval to a simple majority approval with conditions.

A county congestion management agency or a regional transportation agency would have to spell out how the money would be spent on anti-pollution or congestion measures. Those include public transit, road building and maintenance, pollution research, housing development near transit centers and low-energy measures in buildings.

Jerry Hill a San Mateo County supervisor and chairman of the Bay Area Air Quality Management Board, said he supports Torlakson's bill because counties and regions should have a local fee ballot measure as "an option in their tool box" to fight global warming.

The California Truckers Association has opposed the bill.