Anti I-80 tolling amendment killed in US Congress - Brimmeier win

The US House-Senate transport appropriations conference removed an I-80 anti tolling amendment from a budget bill late last night, according to its main sponsor and champion northern PA congressman John Peterson (Repub).

Peterson issued this statement which we quote at length because it echoes many of the themes being heard along I-80:

"Pennsylvania’s best and most successful businesses will be immensely burdened under this tolling and borrowing scheme. Our glass and particle board plants, modular home builders, paper mills, coal fired electric generating plants, food distributors and independent truckers – just to name a few – will pass these astronomical toll costs along to consumers, or in many cases, be forced to relocate. Millions of dollars in increased operating costs hold dire consequences on us all.

"Tolling I-80 is akin to a ‘closed for business’ sign in Pennsylvania, and, as bad as these economic implications are, what may be worse about this scheme is doubling the size and scope of the most scandal ridden, politically polluted and overall wasteful state agency – the Turnpike Commission.

"As a result of our efforts and the attention given to our July amendment, folks across the state are now aware of the grave economic ramifications that tolling I-80, at the highest rates in the country, will have on our entire commonwealth. The sunshine we have placed on the now infamous Act 44 was highlighted by a recent Quinnipiac poll, which concluded only 28 percent of Pennsylvanians favor tolling I-80. A fact brazenly ignored by the governor and his Washington friends. Our amendment helped facilitate the much needed, and overdue, debate that was never afforded in Harrisburg before this devastating legislation was rammed through the general assembly.

"Disappointingly, Pennsylvania House Democrats, and Senator Specter, actively worked to strip the Peterson-English amendment." (end quotes from statement)

Peterson accuses Pennsylvania House Democrats and the Democrat-leaning Republican PA senator, Arlen Specter of taking "marching orders" from Gov Ed Rendell.

In fact the major lobbying effort for I-80 tolling comes from the Turnpike Commission and their major ally Sen Vince Fumo who conceived Act 44 tolling as a counter to the Governor's privatization plan. Fumo made a visit to Washington DC to push the case for I-80 tolling.

Gov Rendell did at the end sign on to Act 44, and has been supporting it, but he says the plan to toll I-80 faces huge obstacles.

OPINION: Peterson's gloom and doom about the economic consequences of tolling is ridiculous. If he was right the tollroads of America would be belts of economic blight whereas in reality prosperity burgeons from most of them because tolling is accompanied by excellent transportation service - the tollroads of the Chicago area, of New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Virginia, California and other states are major magnets for economic development and opportunity.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike itself has considerable new development around its interchanges though it suffers from some of the general economic handicaps of the state.

Peterson has stronger grounds for objection to the manner in which I-80 is being tolled. Act 44 does treat I-80 as a cash cow to raise money for the rest of the state and that's wrong. It should be tolled primarily to improve and maintain I-80 and its immediate environs, just as I-81 and I-78 and other major highways should be tolled for their own enhancement.

Also tolling rights should be granted by open competitive bid, the process being supervised by a joint commission of appointees from New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio and New York state.

Pennsylvania is positively Putinesque in the way vast money-making powers are granted by legislative fiat to the politically entrenched at the Turnpike Commission. Hopefully the US Government will have some of the worst of the Harrisburg crooks locked up in a federal prison before too long. We hear it will be Guantanamo.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-09