A transportation bill that includes tax and fee increases of about $1.4 billion will be released Tuesday and could prompt the first real battle of the legislative session.
Senate Transportation Chairman Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, said the bill will contain a phased-in gas tax increase, license tab fee increases and a metro sales tax increase, generating a fresh infusion of cash for the state's road and bridge projects.
Murphy said that the details were still being worked out, but that the bill will be released Tuesday, the first day of the 2008 legislative session.
The Senate passed a similar bill handily last year, but the House lacked the supermajority needed to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto.
House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, said that DFLers have been building a coalition of willing Republicans who would team up for a supermajority on the bill this year, but GOP leaders say no bill as rich as last year's would pass.
Earlier today, Kelliher and Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, said the transportation bill would have to pass into law before they would take up the capital investment bill, which is expected to pump nearly $1 billion into the Minnesota economy through building projects across the state.
Despite talk of cooperation, a basic dispute between the GOP and DFL has already arisen over how to pay for the state's backlog of road and bridge projects. Republicans want to use the state's bonding power, which would spread the debt across the years, while DFLers prefer a pay-as-you-go system that would use proposed tax increases in the transportation bill.
Patricia Lopez • 651-222-1288
