That isn't so, said state Sen. Joe Scarnati Wednesday, stopping at the Courier-Express during a swing through his eight-counties-large 25th District. Scarnati is the leader of the Senate Republicans as president pro tempore, and is also the lieutenant governor via succession.
"Tolls on Interstate 80 weren't Plan A" when state highway budgets were being discussed, said Scarnati.
Back then, Plan A was to have Congress pass a new highway bill that would bring more federal money back to Pennsylvania. That hasn't happened.
Plan B, Scarnati said, was an increase in the state's gasoline tax. The votes weren't available for that.
Tolling Interstate 80 and using some of the money to replace money that could be diverted to mass transit in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other areas - that was Plan C, with Plan D being to sell the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
"Nobody is happy about Plan B, Plan C or Plan D," Scarnati said, but if the federal government rejects the tolls, there will be a $450 million hole in the transportation budget - just for maintenance, not new construction, and this year's brutal winter will probably drive up the need for highway repairs.
"I wish Congress would fix the problem, as I have asked them," Scarnati said.
There is another federal "fix" needed in Pennsylvania, Scarnati said.
Right now, the governor has the authority to "divert" federal highway trust fund money away from highways and to mass transit programs.
Rendell and other state governors should not have that authority, at least not without the approval of the Legislature, Scarnati said.
But that is a federal problem.
But the only other short-term way to fix the problem is an increase in the gasoline tax, he said. That has its own problems: Gasoline tax revenues are down. People are driving less due to high prices and the recession, and alternative fuels are emerging.
Eventually, Scarnati said, governments will need to find another, more stable, basis for paying for highway needs. For maintenance, there are per-miles-driven plans being talked about. For new construction, "public-private partnerships are the only way to go," he said, suggesting that if someone like Goldman Sachs wanted to spend the money to bring Route 219 between Bradford and DuBois up to Interstate standards - and make it a toll road - that could work.
Scarnati noted, too, that sometimes, legislators (state and federal) have to compromise a bit or else they hurt their constituents.
He told the Bradford Era on Tuesday that he believes one reason rural Pennsylvania was shut out of getting some federal stimulus money was that U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, whose 13-county district includes most of Scarnati's Senate district, voted against the stimulus bill.
"If you're going to be opposed to everything, you don't get it (in on sharing the money)," he said. "That's politics. That's the way it works. It's great to be opposed to everything all the time. It probably prolongs your career in politics."
"To walk on the floor and vote against everything, that's easy," Scarnati said to Era readers.
He thinks it is the job of a legislator to take principled positions, but also to acknowledge reality and accept compromises, in order to get the support of others for one's own ideas.
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Reported by Denny Bonavita, C-E editor, and Marcie Schellhammer, Bradford Era reporter. E-mail: denny2319@windstream.net and marcie@bradfordera.com
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