Senate backs bill raising Missouri fuel taxes

Missouri voters in November would be asked to raise the state's motor fuels taxes under a bill winning first-round approval in the state Senate this week.

A final vote is needed to send the bill to the House, Senate leaders said Thursday, and that's likely to come next week.

The tax has been 17 cents a gallon for gasoline and diesel fuel since 1996. The bill proposes to raise it by 5.9 cents a gallon.

Because the state still is paying off the voter-required bonds sold to pay for road improvements a decade ago, state transportation department officials say income from the fuels tax isn't enough to maintain the current road-and-bridge system.

Missouri's 34,000 miles of roads and 10,400 bridges is the seventh-largest highway system in the nation, but revenues rank 46th in the United States.

"There have been many conversations all over the state and in this Capitol - lots of can-kicking and rhetoric over the last year - about how to address the serious shortfall in our highway and bridge-funding needs," sponsor Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, told the Senate on Wednesday as he brought his bill up for debate. "We need to maintain and preserve our highways and bridges. Every day we are falling further and further behind.

"Continued neglect of our maintenance and bridge construction will have very expensive, long-lasting effects."

Even if voters approve the proposed increase, Libla said, the resulting 22.9 cents per gallon tax would be below the national average of 30 cents per gallon.

"That's not counting toll roads, excise taxes, sales taxes and other taxes that you may pay for your fuel," he said.

In August 2014, Missouri voters rejected a proposed ¾-cent sales tax increase for transportation. That plan would have raised $5 billion over a 10-year period, including the 30 percent of the money going to the cities and counties.

By contrast, Libla said, his bill would gross about $245 million a year, of which MoDOT would get between $165 million and $170 million. Cities and counties would get the other 30 percent.

But with more than 600 bridges in critical condition and more being added to the list each year, Libla noted, "If we built 100 bridges a year for the next 20 or 30 years, we might not ever get caught up with (replacing) critical-condition bridges."

He said his proposal is "this simple - since 1924, motor fuel user tax is the way that we have invested in our highways, period. That is 92 years worth of history, since the voters of Missouri decided how to fund the highway system that we know and use and enjoy every day.

"Those who use it help pay for it. If you drive more, you pay more. If you drive less, you pay less. If you don't drive, you don't pay anything."

The original plan included tax increases small enough for lawmakers to approve without a statewide vote, but the Missouri Constitution requires the larger size increase in the final bill to win voters' approval.

Sen. Rob Schaaf said he remains opposed to any tax increase because the Missouri Republican Party platform says government must learn to live within their means, just as Missouri families do every day. State Sen. Ed Emery, R-Lamar, also is opposed, saying Missourians are taxed enough, and there just needs to be re-allocation.

In a Facebook post, the group Missouri Alliance for Freedom urged people to call Libla's Capitol office and tell him we don't need higher taxes.

"They were the only ones who opposed the bill in committee, when we had 30 other groups - all kinds of groups from all over the state - support the bill in the committee," Libla said at a Thursday news conference.