Last night’s transportation hearing was AMAZING!
The hearing room was overflowing with Vermonters, the vast majority of whom seemed to support the committee’s proposal to tax the most gas-guzzling cars and trucks in order to raise needed revenue for public transit projects. If you missed the hearing, there’s still time to weigh in and support the proposal. Click here to take action now.
Media coverage tended to play up the division in the room, and give the governor, who did not attend the hearing and sent no staff to it, a healthy piece of the coverage. The real truth was that out of about 60 people who testified, approximately 50 of them were in favor of the committee’s proposal. The handful of others were mostly auto dealers who have a financial stake in opposing taxes of any kind on new car sales.
These folks are, of course, entitled to their opinion. But the Governor’s transportation budget is $150 million in the red and he slashed public transit by nearly half a million dollars. The Governor’s budget puts public transit statewide in danger and threatens programs like ‘critical care’ that provide free bus rides to cancer patients who need to get to chemotherapy or folks waiting for kidney transplants to get to a dialysis.
As VPIRG has previously testified, and as we reiterated at last night’s hearing, transportation funding is about making choices. In this case, the Governor is choosing to prioritize wasteful highway projects like the Circ over programs that get sick people to doctors when they need them.
To us, that’s not just bad policy, it’s bad governing. And the Governor’s assertions that he’s defending Vermonter’s right to buy a minivan is just plain wrong. For one thing, the vast majority of personal cars and trucks sold in Vermont will not use enough gas to qualify for the surcharge. More importantly, research from our friends at the Conservation Law Foundation and the Union of Concerned Scientists earlier this year showed that using off-the-shelf technologies we can make SUVs and minivans that get better than 35 mpg.
So what’s the hold up? The big automakers don’t want to invest in new technologies to make cars go farther on a gallon of gas, even if it will save consumers millions in the long run. So it’s up to our elected officials in Montpelier and DC to push these companies to do the right thing, which is just what this bill does. That’s probably why so many Vermonters showed up for transit Tuesday.
Media coverage tended to play up the division in the room, and give the governor, who did not attend the hearing and sent no staff to it, a healthy piece of the coverage. The real truth was that out of about 60 people who testified, approximately 50 of them were in favor of the committee’s proposal. The handful of others were mostly auto dealers who have a financial stake in opposing taxes of any kind on new car sales.
These folks are, of course, entitled to their opinion. But the Governor’s transportation budget is $150 million in the red and he slashed public transit by nearly half a million dollars. The Governor’s budget puts public transit statewide in danger and threatens programs like ‘critical care’ that provide free bus rides to cancer patients who need to get to chemotherapy or folks waiting for kidney transplants to get to a dialysis.
As VPIRG has previously testified, and as we reiterated at last night’s hearing, transportation funding is about making choices. In this case, the Governor is choosing to prioritize wasteful highway projects like the Circ over programs that get sick people to doctors when they need them.
To us, that’s not just bad policy, it’s bad governing. And the Governor’s assertions that he’s defending Vermonter’s right to buy a minivan is just plain wrong. For one thing, the vast majority of personal cars and trucks sold in Vermont will not use enough gas to qualify for the surcharge. More importantly, research from our friends at the Conservation Law Foundation and the Union of Concerned Scientists earlier this year showed that using off-the-shelf technologies we can make SUVs and minivans that get better than 35 mpg.
So what’s the hold up? The big automakers don’t want to invest in new technologies to make cars go farther on a gallon of gas, even if it will save consumers millions in the long run. So it’s up to our elected officials in Montpelier and DC to push these companies to do the right thing, which is just what this bill does. That’s probably why so many Vermonters showed up for transit Tuesday.
1 Comments:
Good report Drew.
By the way, in case anyone is interested in reading it, I posted my testimony re: public transit services and the like delivered during the House Transportation Committee public hearing (4/3/2007), here [via Green Mountain Daily blog].
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