MORGANTOWN — Democratic legislative leaders gathered virtually on Wednesday to again renew their call for gas tax relief for West Virginia vehicle owners.
They repeated their plea for a gas-tax holiday of at least 30 days from the 37.5 cents-per-gallon tax, and added another option: a rebate.
“We’re here today because we’re not giving up on this,” said Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, noting they’re flexible on how relief is provided but not flexible on providing relief.
Sen. Richard Lindsay, D-Kanawha, talked about the tax holiday.
GOP leadership, he said, had raised concerns about the tax holiday affecting road bonding. So they talked to leaders in Maryland, which already has enacted a holiday. They also have road bonds, he said, and the holiday has not hurt their bonding.
Maryland’s and West Virginia’s bond structures are substantially similar, Lindsay said, meaning we can do it here without cause for concern. And we have an advantage: a debt service fund to fill gaps when tax revenue dedicated to bonding dips. The estimated holiday cost of $35 million could come from surplus funds and go into the debt service fund.
House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, explained the rebate. It would be a $100 rebate issued as soon as possible to all vehicle owners. That would provide for about another 16 fill-ups for someone with an 18-gallon tank. Electric vehicles would be excluded.
Based on the most recent figure he could find, there are 571,447 registered vehicles in the state, so the estimated cost would be $57 million, he said.
He said 22 states besides the three that have already enacted gas-tax relief — Connecticut, Georgia and Maryland — are looking at relief possibilities. “We’re open to doing whatever.”
It would preferably be a per-car rebate, he said, so a homeowner with two cars or a business owner with 10 cars would get relief for each vehicle.
Lindsay added that Michigan and California both did rebates, so they would see what they did as examples. “The point is, just get it done.”
The challenge remains getting legislation passed, they all said. They have one bill prepared and another in the works and could get it done in a day if a session could get called.
“We don’t care who takes credit for it, but it needs to get done and it needs to get done immediately,” Baldwin said.
The Senate president and House speaker issued a joint statement opposing the idea earlier this month and did not offer any new thoughts on it when asked by The Dominion Post last week.
Gov. Jim Justice has said if the Legislature wants to call itself into session to take this up he’s all for it, but he doesn’t have the power to enact the tax holiday himself, and hasn’t said he would put a bill on a session that he would call.
Justice is calling a special session for April interims — which run April 24-26 — to fix an economic development bill he vetoed for technical errors, and this would be the first opportunity to take up a tax holiday or rebate bill if GOP leadership doesn’t get behind calling a session any sooner.
The Democratic leaders said they have requested a meeting with the governor to talk about this but have gotten no response. Skaff texted Justice’s chief of staff Brian Abraham during the press conference to again request a meeting, and was awaiting a reply.
“We can present a bill to the governor all day long. The question is will they take it up,” he said.
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp
EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
