Sen. Suzio: “Hundreds of people communicated with me to express their alarm.”

May 26, 2017

Senate Unanimously Votes To Block Mileage Tax Study

(Hartford Courant)

In an unusual show of force to send a message, the state Senate voted unanimously Thursday to block the state from studying a highly controversial tax for every mile that motorists drive.

Known as the mileage tax, the proposal erupted in controversy in 2015 when lawmakers learned that Connecticut intended to join a federal study with four other states. In pursuit of a federal grant, Connecticut was scheduled to pay $300,000 as the state’s share of the study, but the legislature was never informed by the state transportation department.

In an unusual move to express their outrage, all 36 senators placed their names on an amendment Thursday to block the study both now and in the future.

In strong language, the bill flatly states, “The Department of Transportation shall not expend any state funds for any studies, plans, programs, materials or activities regarding a mileage-based user fee on motor vehicles operated on state highways” without legislative approval.

Lawmakers were caught off guard at the time, and the leaders of the state’s transportation committee had not been briefed on the issue.

“We were very surprised that we had to learn this from an article in The Washington Post, and not the DOT,” said Sen. Toni Boucher, a Wilton Republican who serves as one of three co-chairs of the transportation committee. “Why in the world would we be investing $300,000 in taxpayer funds to study it? This was an issue that raised public anger – even more than the toll bill that was being proposed, like no other issue I had seen before in a short period of time. … I even have the midnight emails to prove it.”

Expected to cost $3 million, the study is expected to move forward as early as this summer without Connecticut’s participation. The tax would be based on the number of miles that a person drives. Connecticut had applied for the grant from the Federal Highway Administration along with Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware and Pennsylvania as part of the I-95 Corridor Coalition.

Sen. Len Suzio, a Republican from Meriden who has sharply criticized the tax, said the unanimous support showed that “the Senate can and will act in a bipartisan and collegial way for the citizens of Connecticut.”

He added, “In my opinion, the department overstepped its authority. It hadn’t been debated or authorized by the legislature. Without exaggeration, hundreds and hundreds of people communicated with me to express their alarm.”

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, a Norwalk Democrat, said that senators wanted to make sure that the mileage tax would not come back up again.

“We have slayed this dragon a number of times, and somehow, the dragon keeps resurrecting,” Duff said on the Senate floor. “This study, which was never going to happen, will never happen. The end.”

The bill still needs approval from the state House of Representatives and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who did not include the study money in his $20 billion budget proposal.