New Tolls Fight: Lamont, Democrats Vow To Approve This Plan

HARTFORD, CT — Gov. Ned Lamont and Democratic legislative leaders are moving forward with a plan that would only toll trucks in Connecticut in order to fund transportation infrastructure improvements. Republican legislative leaders remain steadfast in their opposition to tolls of any nature in the Nutmeg state.

The announcement was made after Lamont and both Republican and Democratic legislative leaders met to discuss Connecticut’s transportation future. The meeting was deemed contentious as Republicans refused to endorse any plan that included tolls.

After the meeting leading Republicans issued a statement saying, “Go for it” to Democrats, essentially daring them to find the votes needed to pass any tolls plan. Republicans say Democrats have an “insatiable desire to tax people more.”

“They want tolls, they want to borrow more, they want more tax revenue from Connecticut residents – on top of their new taxes on plastic bags and groceries. They do not want to work with Republicans to do what is truly best for our state and its residents. They want tolls. Period,” said Sen. Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven.

Lamont’s office issued its own statement this week criticizing Fasano and Republicans for walking away from discussions, which were meant to be bipartisan.

“Senator Fasano must be talking about a completely different meeting and a totally different plan. (This week), Governor Lamont asked legislative leaders from both sides of the aisle to come together and discuss for nearly two hours how to grow the state’s economy and fix its broken transportation system,” Lamont’s office said in a statement.

Lamont said the GOP plan would have raided “$1.5 billion from the state’s budget reserves, risking the state’s fiscal future and leaving hundreds of thousands of Connecticut families at risk in the event of an economic downturn. We don’t need a reminder of what happened the last time we did that. We’ve been down this road before, and it led to tax increases and service cuts.”

Lamont said the trucks-only tolling plan shows Democrats are “looking out for our taxpayers’ best interests and the only ones with a plan that takes advantage of revenue from out-of-state trucks, keeps the middle class from being vulnerable during a recession, and moves our state responsibly forward.”

Truck-only tolling would bring in roughly $180 to $200 million per year. The united Democratic plan is still being ironed out, but it would also rely on excess money from the state’s Rainy Day Fund once the fund goes beyond 15 percent of the state budget. Under current law that excess would automatically be used to pay down pension liabilities, which would then free up money to be spent on transportation.

Lamont abandoned his plan to toll both trucks and cars at 14 points on some of the state’s major highways after legislative Democrats gave it a cold response.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney said the toll-only plan is voter-approved since Lamont campaigned on a version of it and he was elected to office.

“There is a real crisis in our state that we can’t just delay any longer,” Looney said.

Looney remained hopeful that a transportation plan would be passed before the start of the regular 2020 legislative session.

Senate Republicans pitched a plan that would take $1.5 billion out of $2.7 billion that is in the state’s rainy day fund and use that to pay down pension liabilities. Fasano said the $1.5 billion would then grow at closer to 6.9 percent instead of the roughly two percent it currently earns sitting in savings.

“I think it’s very difficult for Republicans to support a toll plan given the fact that there is a no toll plan on the table,” Fasano said, adding that there is low confidence that cars would never be subject to tolls.

House Republican leader Themis Klarides said that she doesn’t believe the truck-only plan fiscally works at this point because it won’t bring in enough revenue to seriously upgrade Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure.

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said he was hopeful for a Republican compromise and that Democratic leadership was willing to go as far as a constitutional amendment to keep tolls off of cars, but that they don’t appear interested. The Republican plan to take heavily from the rainy day fund was too risky and would amount to picking trucks over the middle class if a recession were to hit.

“When that recession comes and there is no money in the savings account we will cut education , we will cut nonprofits and the other side of the aisle will say, ‘What terrible managers they are, they didn’t plan for something like this happening,” he said.