Transportation impasse continues with talk of Kool-Aid

After tough words and little movement in Thursday night’s conference committee on transportation funding, the group met again Friday morning, yielding — yes, tough words and little movement. This according to my AJC colleague Ariel Hart.

The lack of movement led to some fiery oration in the Senate that is not yet finished.

Pounding the podium and bellowing like a revival preacher, Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga), who’s championing the Senate-backed regional sales tax for transportation, slammed the House’s refusal to give up its call for a state-wide sales tax.

“They have proved that they have no intentions to move forward in transportation,” he said. He later added, “What Kool-Aid are they drinking? What is it laced with? The only thing we can pass in this state is a T-SPLOST?”

The Senate took H.B. 56, a sales tax bill, and tacked on its latest offer — and sent it to the House. See the language of the Senate offer here and here.

The senators contend that experience shows the statewide idea has never passed in the U.S. The representatives reply that Georgia should think bold and be the first.

The Senate on Thursday offered to give a percentage of the gas tax for freight corridors, and the House remains unimpressed with that offer.

One highlight of Friday morning’s meeting had Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) addressing the Senate’s failure to pass the regional transportation funding bill last year – after it had passed the House. “I am here to apologize on behalf of the Senate for us falling three votes short,? Reed said.

Rep. Vance Smith responded with an apology for his failure to get his statewide funding passed by the House last year before he gave it up for the regional proposal. He attributed that to not having a project list in the bill, which his bill does now.

The one change Smith offered to his bill was to delete some lines from the project list. He took out money to build a streetcar project and replaced it with a study. He also took out a request to study two toll road projects, though the bill hadn’t funded those projects to begin with.

There is also a new piece on the committee’s chess-board. MARTA’s request to lift a restriction on how it spends its money found its way into the negotiations (with no resolution). Reed also addressed that issue from the Senate podium.

Also worth noting: House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) for the first time asked Mullis during negotiations what the Senate’s intentions were over S.B. 200, the governance bill considered necessary as a prerequisite.

The Senate has yet to agree or disagree to the changes the House has made and approved in the bill. Mullis deferred on the topic.