Negotiators to Seek Transportation Deal

House Republicans Defeat Senate Plan Over Higher Fees

RICHMOND, Feb. 21 -- House and Senate leaders in the Virginia General Assembly appointed teams of negotiators late Wednesday to make one last effort to reach a deal on a transportation package this year, after the House of Delegates earlier in the evening rejected a Senate version of the plan.

The two Republican-controlled chambers remained at loggerheads over how to come up with millions of dollars to pour into highway and transit improvements across the state. Anti-tax House Republicans approved a measure that would divert $250 million a year from such core services as schools, colleges and health care, while the Senate on Wednesday replaced that plan with a substitute that instead would impose steep new fees.

But lawmakers -- and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) -- remained hopeful that a plan might yet emerge from the conference committee appointed Wednesday evening to work out the differences between the delegates and senators. Kaine noted how far House and Senate leaders have come this session, with the House agreeing to let local governments raise fees for road improvements and the Senate taking a major statewide tax increase off the table.

"What I see are two sides that were at very, very different positions last year, and even after nine months not really moving toward each other," Kaine said. "Both sides accepted some of the key premises of the other house. This is the vehicle, and we ought to act now."

House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) had threatened Tuesday to withdraw his own bill, a compromise package negotiated over several weeks by House and Senate Republicans, after it emerged from the Senate Finance Committee entirely changed.

But when the full Senate voted 23 to 17 Wednesday in favor of the alternative plan, Howell allowed it to reach the floor of the House. Although delegates then voted 58 to 34 to reject it, their vote keeps the plan alive by sending it to a conference committee. Now, six delegates and five senators will meet privately to try to iron out their differences. Each chamber still will have the chance to reject or accept the conference committee report, should one emerge.

In the Senate, Republicans who helped broker the speaker's proposal urged their colleagues not to approve the Senate Finance Committee substitute because, even without a statewide tax increase, it had little chance of approval in the House. Instead of general fund dollars, the Senate plan would, among other things, impose a one-time $150 registration fee on automobile purchases (the Senate agreed Wednesday to exempt vehicles worth less than $2,500).

Both plans would allow regional transportation authorities in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise money for road and transit improvements. Both would borrow money and raise a variety of fees, including fines on bad drivers and a $10 vehicle registration fee, for statewide transportation improvements.

"My sole objective has been to try to advance a transportation plan that has some modicum, some scintilla, some prayer of a chance of passage," said Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City), who helped negotiate the GOP-brokered deal and opposed the Senate substitute.

Those on the other side of the argument objected just as passionately to the GOP plan's provision to take general fund dollars away from existing programs.

"We know what happens down the hall," said Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Northumberland), who crafted the Senate substitute. "We know they don't want to deal in taxes. I wish we had the same resolve about the general fund. I hope we will, before it's all over with, have that resolve."

In the House of Delegates, lawmakers engaged in a similar debate before rejecting the Senate plan. Democrats opposed to redirecting general fund dollars criticized Republicans for stubbornly standing their ground on taxes -- and for excluding Democrats from negotiations.

"Mr. Speaker, if it was a compromise, it wasn't any discussion with those of us on this side of the aisle," said Del. Ward L. Armstrong (D-Henry). "Everybody involved ought to have some say in how we shape this bill."

But Republican delegates argued, as they have for years, that current state revenue can pay for transportation improvements.

"I don't think that $250 million a year for a core service like transportation is too much," said Del. Phillip A. Hamilton (R-Newport News).

Howell appointed six delegates to lead House negotiations: House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem), M. Kirkland Cox (R-Colonial Heights), S. Chris Jones (R-Suffolk), Terry G. Kilgore (R-Scott), Timothy D. Hugo (R-Fairfax) and Algie T. Howell Jr. (D-Norfolk).

From the Senate, the negotiators are: Norment, Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell), Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach), Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) and Martin E. Williams (R-Newport News).

Now, lawmakers -- and the public -- must wait to see what comes of the negotiations. Along those lines, House Minority Leader Franklin P. Hall (D-Richmond) urged that the process of negotiation continue.

"Our constituents sent us here not to draw a line in the sand and say, 'My way or the highway,' " he said. "They sent us here to hammer out the differences."