Bridge-road bill needed.

Byline: The Register-Guard

House Bill 2041 is a carefully stitched-together piece of legislation that would provide $2.5 billion over 10 years to repair nearly 500 cracked and load-limited bridges around Oregon, fix up some roads and highways, provide money to local governments for road-related projects and create an estimated 4,750 jobs. But the bill has hit a snag in the Oregon Senate. To salvage the measure and all that it would accomplish, that snag must be overcome - soon.

The money provided by HB 2041 would be raised by bumping car and truck registration fees and title transfer fees and also by boosting the weight-mile tax that truckers pay. The problem in the Senate has to do with the House-passed version of the bill that provides a tax credit for truckers who buy and install cleaner engines. On the surface, that sounds like a legitimate trade-off: a tax credit in exchange for a cleaner environment.

HB 2041 sailed through the House on a vote of 48-11. But upon arriving in the Senate, some senators objected to the truckers' tax credit. These legislators pointed to the legislative fiscal staff's projection that the tax credit would create a $4 million hole in the 2003-05 budget, which is still being pieced together. These lawmakers succeeded in having the bill referred back to the Senate Revenue Committee, which is scheduled to hold a hearing today on the tax credit provision.

In a perfect world, the truckers' tax credit is defensible. Also in a perfect world, jeopardizing the already shaky 2003-05 budget with a potential $4 million hole is not defensible. But politics is a means of dealing with an imperfect world.

Removing the tax credit at this point would endanger - some would say destroy - the strong support the bill enjoyed in the House. Already, some of the participants who crafted the legislation - truckers, the American Automobile Association of Oregon-Idaho and several legislators - are saying that they will withdraw their support and urge defeat of the bill if the truckers' tax credit is removed.

That's the dilemma: Change the bill and risk its defeat in the House, or retain the tax credit provision and risk its defeat in the Senate.

Given that the state sorely needs the bridge and road repair funds that HB 2041 would provide - not to mention the nearly 5,000 jobs a year for 10 years it would create - and given the bill's almost certain rejection by the House if the tax credit comes out, the prudent thing is for the Senate to hold its nose and pass the bill as is. The Legislature can then look for revenues to fill the $4 million budgetary hole the bill's passage might create.

That may not be the ideal solution, but at this late date in the legislative session and given what's at stake, it's the bridge that should be crossed and the road that should be traveled.