During an informational hearing last Thursday, the Senate Budget Committee heard two hours of testimony from nearly 30 speakers urging a rejection of the Governor's gas tax proposal that would eliminate funding for public transit. In addition to California Transit Association Executive Director Joshua Shaw, the committee also heard from Association Executive Committee members David Kutrosky (Capitol Corridor JPA) and Michael Wiley (Sacramento Regional Transit), as well as representatives from member agencies San Mateo County Transit District, San Francisco MTA, BART, Caltrain, AC Transit and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

In addition, the panel heard from Jim Earp, a member of the California Transportation Commission and Executive Director of the California Alliance for Jobs, which, along with the California Transit Association and the League of California Cities, is sponsoring the Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act currently planned for the November, 2010 ballot. Other groups voicing their opposition included the Associated General Contractors, Self Help Counties Coalition, California State Association of Counties, Urban Counties Caucus, Southern California Contractors Association, United Transportation Union, Professional Engineers in California Government, Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, American Lung Association, California Public Interest Research Group, National Resource Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, Planning and Conservation League, League of California Cities, Sierra Club, Teamsters, Amalgamated Transit Union, State Building and Construction Trades Council, and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), Chair of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing, set the tone for the morning session when he responded to a Department of Finance representative's presentation on the proposal by saying "This is mind-boggling. Last year we put a dagger through the heart of public transit. This year, you're proposing to bury it completely." Lowenthal later proposed adjourning the hearing "in memory of the state's commitment to public transit."

The Governor's proposal would eliminate the sales tax on gasoline and diesel fuels and replace a portion of that revenue source with an increase in the excise tax on fuels, none of which would be allocated to transit. This plan circumvents recent court rulings that outlawed ongoing diversions of state funding dedicated to public transit. Instead of diverting money from the Public Transportation Account – which was barred by the courts in their ruling on Shaw vs. Chiang – the proposal would remove the funding stream that is supposed to flow into the PTA in the first place, effectively eliminating state funding for transit.

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The portion of the hearing addressing the Governor's transportation proposal runs for the first two hours of the video.  You can utilize the timeline tools in the video player to move backward or forward through the video.  For best results, use the timeline that runs along the bottom of the video player. Hover your mouse pointer over the point in the timeline to which you wish to advance, click once, and do not move your mouse until the video has started to reload.