Stop stalling, Rendell tells turnpike leaders

June 3, 2008

Brad Bumsted, STATE CAPITOL REPORTER, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

HARRISBURG -- Gov. Ed Rendell said Monday the Turnpike Commission should quit stalling on providing information the federal government wants to determine whether Interstate 80 can be a toll road.

It's a decision that's critical to Rendell's plans to lease the turnpike to a private consortium for $12.8 billion, which would finance highways, bridges and mass transit. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission opposes the private lease plan.

More than five months ago, the federal Highway Administration asked the state for additional information on I-80. The Legislature last year approved, and Rendell signed, a highway funding bill known as Act 44, which calls for higher turnpike tolls, borrowing by the turnpike commission and tolling I-80.

Federal approval is necessary before tolls can be levied on I-80, which Rendell has said won't be necessary if he succeeds in leasing the turnpike.

If the feds shoot down I-80 tolling, "it blows a hole a mile wide in Act 44," House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, said last week.

Rendell said at a news conference yesterday that turnpike officials "can't win this by stalling." He sent a memo to turnpike CEO Joe Brimmeier asking that the information be in federal hands by the end of the week. On May 19, when Rendell announced the bid by a Spanish company and a New York city-based financial house to lease the turnpike, he called for an "expedited" submission of the I-80 data.

Barry Schoch, the turnpike's project manager of the I-80 tolling plan, said it might take "a couple of months" to gather all the information for the federal government.

One of the holdups, he said, is identifying up to 10 potential tolling plazas along the highway and meeting with local officials.

In the memo to Brimmeier, Rendell said, "I believe it is time for the Commonwealth to get an answer one way or the other from the U.S. Department of Transportation regarding whether tolls on Interstate 80 will be allowed."

Rendell told Brimmeier that all state resources would be made available to the turnpike to meet his deadline.

Rendell isn't insisting that the Legislature approve a turnpike lease by June 30, the deadline for approving a state budget. The governor said initial talks with House and Senate leaders leave him optimistic an agreement can be reached on the budget and other legislation.

The turnpike lease bid by Abertis InfraeStructures, Citi Infrastructure Investors and Criteria CaxiCorp expires June 20, but Rendell said he thinks it can be extended until the Legislature returns from summer recess in September.

"I'm glad the governor didn't draw a line in the sand" on the state budget, said House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia.

Rendell wants the Legislature to approve health care, alternative energy legislation, an economic stimulus plan and a new school funding formula by June 30.

"Once again, the governor just wants everything," said Stephen Miskin, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney. As long as Evans keeps the budget bill "bottled up" in the Appropriations Committee, it "stifles the ability to get this done on time," Miskin said.

During a news conference yesterday, Evans was vague about when the House will vote on the $28 billion state spending plan.