Toll road moratorium gets overwhelming support in the House

04/11/2007

Gary Scharrer, Austin Bureau, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

AUSTIN — Reacting to public hostility, the Texas House tentatively slapped a moratorium on private-company toll roads Tuesday with a loud, 134-5 vote to stop those projects for two years.

"This moratorium gives us a chance to take a deep breath," Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said of her effort to temporarily stop the roads. The proposed moratorium faces a final House vote today and an uncertain future in the Senate.

Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas, opposes a moratorium while he tries to negotiate a compromise measure. But the moratorium has support from 26 of 31 senators.

Kolkhorst's moratorium would stop private-company toll roads and create a committee to study the pros and cons of those private-equity finance projects. The committee must issue a report by Dec. 1, 2008.

Kolkhorst attached her moratorium measure on a transportation-related bill. Her own moratorium bill had been stranded in the House Public Transportation Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Taylor, opposes it.

Krusee and four other lawmakers voted against the measure.

Texas faces serious road construction needs and population growth that is expected to nearly double from 23 million today to 45 million by 2040.

"When you wake up in the morning, there's going to be 1,000 new people in this state and a thousand after that, every day a thousand more people," Krusee said.

The federal highway trust fund that has supported state road-building projects will run out of money by the time the moratorium expires, he warned.

He urged his colleagues to consider other ways to generate highway construction money.

Texas has not increased its 20-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax since 1991. The tax revenue falls far short of meeting the state's road-building needs.

But lawmakers won't increase the gas tax, Krusee said later: "The Legislature doesn't want to raise taxes."

The moratorium also is a reaction to a 156-page transportation bill that rushed through the Legislature four years ago in less than 20 days. Lawmakers didn't fully understand the legislation that resulted in 50-year toll road contracts with private companies, Kolkhorst said.

The moratorium would not affect public toll-road authorities.