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CCA Board Votes To Support Transportation Funding Bill, CCA Helps Lead Broad Coalition Pushing For Passage of Historic Measure

Bill Will Provide More Than $4 billion for State and Local Roads, Bridges and Transit Over Ten Years, Secures Permanent Indexed Funding For HUTF This morning, CCA announced its support for the transportation funding bill being introduced today at the State Capitol. CCA and Colorado Concern worked to co-chair a broad coalition of business and labor interests pushing for the measure over the last year. Since the release of the outline of the proposal last month, CCA and its coalition partners including Colorado Motor Carriers Association, Lyft and others have been working to make improvements to the bill prior to its introduction. “This bill provides an unprecedented commitment of State General Fund money into the system and sets up a sustainable revenue stream, indexed to inflation, into the Highway User Tax Fund (HUTF) which is split between CDOT, counties and cities, said CCA’s Tony Milo. “By increasing the electric vehicle fee to reach parity with gas and diesel powered vehicles and adding fees to ride share services and deliveries, the bill helps protect against future lost revenue due to a reduction of liquid fuel consumption.”

Changes from the original proposal to this the draft that were made in response to our requests include:

  • An increase in General Fund commitment equal to $200 million on average over the first five years after enactment
  • A “re-opener” to consider additional GF commitment, on top of the on-going COP debt service, after year 5
  • Including a funding stream from a portion of the fees to the Bridge Enterprise providing the option for CDOT to bond or use other debt instruments for high priority projects
  • Increasing over time the electric vehicle (EV) fee to reach parity with liquid fuel powered vehicles
  • Adjusting the fuel and diesel road use fees to achieve equity (equal to an 8 cent per gallon increase, indexed to inflation)
  • Adding specific transparency and accountability language regarding CDOT’s procurement process

CCA is also seeking to lobby for amendments to some of the language in the Legislative Declaration portion of the bill that we consider rhetorical, inaccurate and unnecessary. The Legislative Declaration is a statement of legislative intent and does not have the rule of law.Overall the package provides for:

  • Raises more than $3.7 billion in new fees over the first ten years
  • Provides $1.4 billion in General Fund and Stimulus commitment to CDOT in the first ten years
  • Ensures the issuance of Tranche 3 & 4 of the $500m COPs and a GF commitment to debt service
  • Includes an inflation index on the fees flowing into the HUTF with no sunset
  • Includes funding for new enterprises including a non-attainment fund, multimodal and mitigation options fund, and electrification
For an outline of the measure, click here.
For a copy of the draft bill, click here.