Virginia Transportation Bill to Become Law

The Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday approved Gov. Bob McDonnell’s amended transportation plan, which would slash gas taxes and use other taxes to pump billions into Virginia’s transportation infrastructure over the next five years.

Virginia’s Road to the Future, McDonnell’s ambitious and controversial plan to either raise, or redirect, $3.5 billion of new tax revenue into the commonwealth’s roads, bridges, and transit systems over the next five years will become law July 1 after the amended version cleared both the House of Delegates and the Senate Wednesday. The plan slashes the per-gallon gas tax and instead would impose a first-time wholesale tax on gas and diesel fuel distributors and raise the state general sales tax, diverting some of that to transportation.

McDonnell tweaked the bill slightly after its original passage in February when constituents in densely-populated Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area complained that the bill targeted them with unfair extra taxes.  Also, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli suggested those taxes might make the law in violation of the commonwealth’s constitution.

McDonnell removed those tax provisions and also reduced a proposed extra tax on hybrid cars to $64 annually from $100.

The legislative session was McDonnell’s last as governor, as he is term-limited and unable to serve beyond the start of 2014.

“It is a poignant moment for me today as I finish my last day of work with the General Assembly after 22 years in office,” McDonnell said. “I want to give my heartfelt thanks to the General Assembly for coming together to support, in a broad bipartisan manner, our legislative agenda which focused on core services of government, and for their partnership to make this session, and the last three a productive and substantive.”

McDonnell said the work the General Assembly did helped to protect Virginia’s status as one of the nation’s most fiscally-sound states.

“We set out to make Virginia government do more with less, and after this session the Commonwealth will be on sounder financial footing,” the governor said. “We have accumulated $1.4 billion in budget surpluses the past three years through sound management by the legislative and executive branch. Moody’s rated our transportation funding legislation this session ‘credit positive’ toward maintaining our AAA bond rating.”

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Infrastructure Transportation industry Virginia
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