As they mull possible ways to come up with the $700 million a year needed to fund several major traffic relief projects in the Capital Region, lawmakers from the Baton Rouge delegation say one option is to bring a 23-cent gasoline tax to a statewide vote of the people.
Rep. Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, said he recently discussed the possibility with Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is not opposed to a gasoline tax but has acknowledged the political challenges of getting the Legislature to approve one.
“That is an option,” said Carter. “If we vote to let the people do it then the legislators are off the hook.”
Putting a gasoline tax on the ballot would require 70 votes in the Legislature, the same number of votes it would take lawmakers to pass such a tax outright. Both would be hard sells in the Republican-dominated Legislature. But the former option is more politically palatable, Carter says.
“It doesn’t make it look like they voted for a gasoline tax,” he said.
Carter’s comments came at the conclusion of a meeting of the Baton Rouge Rotary Club, where CRISIS co-chairman John Pacillo addressed the region’s pressing need for new bridge and highway projects. CRISIS, or Capital Region Industry for Sustainable Infrastructure Solutions, is an industry-led group that has been researching the best ways to address the region’s traffic problem—Baton Rouge has the third-worst congestion in the nation for a city of its size—and trying to find funding solutions.
“There is no silver bullet,” Pacillo said. “There is a combination of solutions.”
CRISIS has identified four major projects that Pacillo says have “the most bang for the buck,” including a new bridge across the Mississippi River and widening Interstate 10 through much of Baton Rouge. Pacillo urged his audience to lobby their lawmakers to help fund the projects.
Carter echoed those sentiments, and said the key will be getting rural lawmakers and those from other parts of the state to support the effort.
“We need to bond together to do exactly what he says we need to do,” Carter said. “If we don’t stick together and come up with a game plan as to what we need to do and contact every legislator across the state and ask them to support whatever it is we have to do to solve this problem in Baton Rouge we’re in trouble.”
Carter said the notoriously fractured Capital Region delegation is in lock step on the issue and is working on a game plan that involves reaching out to lawmakers from other areas of the state as well as the governor.
“We’re all sticking together as a delegation. We’re 30 strong,” he said. “But we need you to call other people around the state and encourage them to do whatever is necessary to solve this problem. Because I promise you they come here. They’re here right now. They know it’s a problem. They just have to have encouragement to support us.”
—Stephanie Riegel
