BY SHARON TULLY
\nSTAFF WRITER
\nTHE CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE<\/p>\n
The Senate Finance Committee voted 9-6 to pass a transportation plan that calls for a 5 percent increase on gas tax.<\/p>\n
The bill, sponsored by Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., R-Clarke, killed the Republican transportation compromise, something many top lawmakers are not happy about.<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch, R-Goochland, was among the six legislators to vote against the plan, which would implement a 5 percent increase per dollar on gasoline and allow local taxes in traffic-congested areas such as Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to be raised in order to fund other transportation projects.<\/p>\n
Stosch was not available for comment, but his spokesman, Scott Leake said the
\nsenator was clearly disappointed in the outcome.<\/p>\n
"He worked for months on the compromise that could be successful," Leake said, "so consequently it is a disappointment."<\/p>\n
The plan must survive the Virginia Senate, before which Leake hopes there will be another chance to resurrect the compromise, he said.<\/p>\n
"What we've seen is the further into the legislative session you go, sometimes it becomes more apparent what can and can't succeed," Leake said. "There's a hope that those who voted against the compromise plan and for the more comprehensive plan might come to recognize that this is not realistic."<\/p>\n
The major difference in the plans, in addition to the tax increase, is the dependency upon the general fund, which provides funding to public education, safety, and health care.<\/p>\n
Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-Gloucester, the sponsor of the House-Senate compromise, warned that the House of Delegates would kill any plan that called for gas tax increase. The compromise avoided a statewide tax increase by calling for $250 million a year from the general fund, whereas the Senate plan would only use about $66 million.<\/p>\n
"This is a rough time to talk about raising prices at the pump," Leake said. "People are extremely sensitive about it."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BY SHARON TULLY STAFF WRITER THE CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE The Senate Finance Committee voted 9-6 to pass a transportation plan that calls for a 5 percent increase on gas tax. The bill, sponsored by Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., R-Clarke, killed the Republican transportation compromise, something many top lawmakers are not happy about. Senate Majority … Continue reading Transportation Plan<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-virginia-assembly"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/studentvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}