House Republicans struggled for an entire week to build support to move a transportation package that would generate approximately 2.5 billion dollars over five years. House Transportation Committee Chairman Dick Hess shed some light on the deliberations of SB1 on Tuesday.

The bill was finally amended in Committee on Thursday to reduce the pressure faced by members that criticize government spending and oppose anything that resembles a tax.

Among the major provisions, the amendments phased out the removal of the oil company franchise tax provisions over a period of 5 years, as opposed to 3 in the original bill. They also eliminated changes to the liquid fuels tax provisions, as well as the 100 dollar surcharge on traffic tickets.

Provisions that affected prevailing wage rates by reclassifying road construction projects as road maintenance were also removed from the amendment and placed into HB665. Minority Leader Frank Dermody foreshadowed this event on Tuesday, "They either take it out and place it into separate bills they've scheduled to run on Thursday, it's a non-starter for us."

The end result was a transportation bill that provides 1.842 billion dollars by year 5 of the current proposal. This figure equates to roughly 673 million dollars less than the original proposal and 878 million dollars less than what the Transportation Funding Advisory Commission Recommended in 2011.

As of now, there are over 100 amendments filled to SB 1 from members on both sides. A spokesperson from the Democratic caucus has informed us that one of them will be a severance tax based upon West Virginia’s model that is expected to generate at least 330 million dollars. House Republicans have just released a memo about prevailing wage and road maintenance that is anticipated to free up 300 million dollars for local governments.

Consideration is tentatively scheduled for Saturday. We'll keep you updated as events unfold.

Photo/Natalie Cake