Feb
19
Written by:
Andy Hogue
2/19/2010 3:18 PM
Speaker Joe Straus released his picks for a select committee designed to recommend changes to the transportation financing situation in the Lone Star State.
Straus selected a diverse sampling of opinions on transportation policy reform to comprise the newly formed House Select Committee on Transportation Funding. -- from House Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso) who led the fight to block the expansion of toll roads in the previous session, and Vicki Truitt (R-Southlake) who said a plan to give large metro areas the power to call elections to raise gasoline taxes and other fees in order to build toll roads was "fall on my sword"- worthy.
Expectedly, the committee is bipartisan. But it also seems, at first glance, to be comprised of both toll road and anti-toll road advocates. This means that any reform suggested by this committee will likely be open to the Local Option Transportation Plan and continuing tolling as a major means of transportation funding.
Chairing the committee will be Rep. Larry Phillips (R-Sherman), along with vice chairman Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin). The full committee is also structured into two subcommittees, consisting of a Subcommittee on Funding and a Subcommittee on Planning and Accountability.
Members of the funding subcommittee are: Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo), chair, and Reps. Patricia Harless (R-Spring), Todd Hunter (R-Corpus Christi), Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio), Pickett, Rodriguez, and Truitt.
Members of the planning and accountability subcommittee are: Rep. Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City), chair, and Reps. Roberto Alonzo (D-Dallas), Bill Callegari (R-Katy), Edmund Kuempel (R-Seguin), Mando Martinez (D-Weslaco), Wayne Smith (R-Baytown) and Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston).
A press release from the Speakers office said the committee is designed to "highlight the need for increased transparency and accountability in Texas transportation and to analyze current and future transportation funding requirements" and to develop formal proposals for the 82nd Legislative Session members to consider.
“Texans expect a fiscally sound transportation policy that meets the infrastructure and mobility challenges of our growing state," Straus said, via the release. "Our transportation agency must be accountable and efficient."
Terri Hall, director of the anti-toll road group Texas United for Reform and Freedom (TURF), told LSR the committee as a whole seems weighted toward the pro-toll position. Chairman Phillips, she said, is pro-toll road, while Vice Chair Rodriguez is usually anti-toll. As far as the members go, Hall said, Jones McClendon, Pickett, and Thompson lean to anti-toll positions, whereas Callegari, Kuempel, and Smith tend to be pro-toll. The rest, she said, have not made enough waves for her to say if they're pro- or anti-toll.
"It's strange to me that Phillips would be the chair of this committee, when he was the absolute worst about accountability in TxDOT" Hall said.
Phillips said told LSR he is looking forward to "digging down and coming up with some agreement on a lot of the basics of the transportation system, and coming up with the steps we're going to have to take to make sure it's where it needs to be."
"I think the Speaker did a very good job [of selecting the committee]. It's not just about funding, because if we don't address the accountability and efficiency aspects we'll never solve the funding problems," Phillips said. "... I hope it doesn't come down to which side we're going to be on -- but that we'll be on the side of the citizens."
In terms of supporting accountability within TxDOT, Phillips said he supports the independent, internal audit of the department, and sponsored a bill, SB 255 in the 80th Session, to require disclosure of previously undisclosed transportation documents. SB 255 passed unanimously in both houses, he said, and he also authored several bills to end diversions from Fund 6 (the state's transportation fund).
"To me, that is accountability -- to put the information out there," he said.
[Note: Updates made at 5:11 p.m.]