The Ohio House and DeWine administration have agreed on increasing the tax to 11-cents per gallon while the Ohio Senate is backing 6-cents per gallon.
If you drive 15,000 miles per year and get 25 miles per gallon, you buy about 600 gallons of gasoline each year.
An 11-cent tax hike would cost you $66 while a 6-cent increase would cost $36.
The difference between the two amounts to 8-cents per day in additional taxes if the 11-cents is approved instead of 6-cents.
University of Dayton political scientist Christopher Devine said raising taxes is risky for politicians, particularly Republican lawmakers. Raising the tax and failing to get enough money to fix the roads could be a worst case scenario, he said.
“If you’re thinking about this strategically, it seems like there are really two sensible options for Republicans: don’t raise the gas tax at all, or raise the price per gallon by enough that you actually solve the problem and don’t have to raise it again for several years to come,” Devine said.
Diesel fuel hike to impact local businesses and consumers
The House and governor have also agreed to increase the tax on diesel fuel by 20 cents per gallon, which would hit the trucking industry, which is already facing higher costs due to driver shortages.
“Now you’re going to add on a fuel tax, which we don’t mind sharing, but there will be an effect on the consumer,” said Kevin Burch, president of Dayton trucking company Jet Express and former chairman of American Trucking Associations.
Yet the American Trucking Associations supports the fuel tax hike because road conditions have become unsafe, accident-prone and creat major backups for drivers, he said. Truck drivers traveling from Dayton to Cincinnati or crossinginto Kentucky are running into major congestion. Those drivers using electronic logging devices that track the number of hours drivers can operate the trucks sometimes aren’t able to return home because they eat up their hours waiting in slow traffic.
“We want a tax increase to fix the roads because of congestion…Accidents are caused more now than in the past because of the conditions of the deteriorating road and infrastructure,” Burch said. “We just wish that the federal government would have been the one to initiate it rather than individual states.”
The Ohio Constitution requires motor fuel tax revenue be used solely for bridge and road maintenance and construction.
Area farmers will also feel the burn as the cost to fill equipment and haul crops increases, said Darke County extension educator Sam Custer. But most are in favor of increasing the gas tax.
Some farmers are moving grain from Darke County as far as Cincinnati because of the current structure of farms, making roads a “critical part of how they operate,” Custer said.
“From the agriculture perspective here in Darke county, we need those funds to maintain the roads or rebuild the roads. We have bridges in western Ohio that are weight limited to a point where farm equipment can’t cross them anymore because of the deteriorating condition,” he said.
The Ohio Wheat Growers Association recently announced support for DeWine’s original 18-cent plan, according to Ohio Ag Net. The Ohio Farm Bureau delegates also voted to support an increase in the fuel tax to repair rural roads and bridges at its annual meeting in December, before DeWine took office, according to a statement.
Debate set to continue Tuesday
Lawmakers are expected to resume meetings on the two-year, $7.4 billion state transportation budget bill on Tuesday.
Behind the scenes negotiations last week and over the weekend hit an impasse, leading Ohio to blow through a March 31 deadline to have the bill signed into law.
The state gas tax, which was last increased in 2005, is 28-cents per gallon. Again, a motorist driving 15,000 miles per year at 25 mpg is currently paying $168 in state gas taxes. The sticking point is whether to add another $66 or $36 to that tax bill.
Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said he is confident lawmakers will reach agreement.
“We all want the best roads possible. We all want to protect the taxpayers to the extent possible. And we all want to make Ohio as great as it can be,” Obhof said. One sticking point is determining how much additional money Ohio needs for its roads and bridges, he said.
“I think that when you are asking the taxpayers for more of their money, it is important that you only take as much as is necessary,” he said.
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