NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - House Speaker Beth Harwell's bid to strip a proposed gas tax hike from fellow Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's plan to boost transportation funding in Tennessee fizzled in a key House committee Tuesday, thought supporters vowed to try to revive the effort before a full floor vote.
The change sought to rewrite the legislation to instead draw the bulk of the funding for new road and bridge construction from sales taxes paid on new and used vehicles. It also would create new taxes on electric and hybrid vehicles, and increase registration fees.
House Finance Chairman Charles Sargent, R-Franklin, noted that the proposed $300 tax on electric vehicles would be the highest in the country in a state where automaker Nissan produces batteries and the all-electric Leaf.
Committee members also noted that proposal did not include any of the tax cuts that the governor has proposed to balance against a gas tax hike. They would include a 20 percent reduction in the sales tax on groceries, a $113 million cut in corporate taxes paid by manufacturers and dialing back the tax on earnings from stocks and bonds by 1 percentage point. The cuts would total a greater amount than what would be raised by the fuel tax increases.
Rep. David Hawk, a Greeneville Republican who has worked in concert with Harwell on efforts strip the 6-cent gas tax and 10-cent diesel tax hikes from the bill, withdrew his amendment when it appeared that the House Finance Committee was on the verge of voting it down.
The measure now heads to the House Calendar and Rules Committee, which in nearly all cases is a formality for getting a floor vote scheduled. But with Harwell's ongoing efforts to scuttle the tax, the panel made up of committee chairmen and other legislative leaders may present another chance to try to halt the measure's progress.
Harwell's proposed alternative drew a strong rebuke from Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, a Collierville Republican who, like Harwell, is strongly considering a bid for governor next year.
"We are actually returning money to the taxpayers, a tax cut is money in their pocket," Norris said. "When they reshuffle the deck by raiding the general fund, the taxpayer never sees that.
"I've never seen a real Republican run from a tax cut like she is," he said.
Norris said advancing heavily divergent version the bill could cause the legislative session to drag out.
"It just prolongs the agony and keeps us here at loggerheads much longer, which doesn't serve the people of Tennessee well. "To pull the rug out from under the administration and float this retread, to what end?"
The effort to take the gas tax out of the transportation funding proposal has exposed deep fault lines within the House GOP. The Tennessean newspaper reported that Republicans held a secret straw poll on Monday evening to try to gauge support for the measure.
House Republican Caucus Chairman Ryan Williams of Cookeville would not release the result before Wednesday's committee meeting, but said afterward that the poll showed 37 votes against and 30 votes in favor. Six Republicans abstained.
Williams said his goal was to make sure members don't have to make a politically difficult vote on a bill that might not ultimately pass.
"If we know that the bill is having trouble, it's my job as the caucus chair to make sure you don't vote on something that will fail," he said.