Tag! You’re It! Idaho House Rejects Senate’s Gas Tax

By Sharon Fisher, 4-21-09

The Idaho Legislature these days is like watching a tennis game. To recap:
Monday: Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter vetoed a series of bills, including eight appropriations bills, because the Legislature had not provided the funding he requested on transportation maintenance. 
Monday afternoon: the Senate amended HB96, a bill on ethanol taxation, by adding registration fees and a gas tax of three cents each of the next two years.

Now, on Tuesday morning, the House has decisively rejected, 15-55, the Senate’s amendments, meaning that Otter is likely going to be pulling out the veto stamp again.

Interestingly, it was Representative Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene—one of the most ardent opponents of a gas tax—who brought forth the amended legislation. However, even he voted against it.

Debate against the bill included Representative Phil Hart, R-Athol, and Representative JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, criticizing not the gas tax itself, but the fact that the Senate had done it, saying that only the House was supposed to raise taxes.

Presumably what will happen at this point is that Otter will continue to veto appropriations bills, while the House prepares a *House*-developed gas tax bill—which may or may not pass, given the fate of the other gas tax bills this session.

Nonini was also given the “crow award,” given to representatives putting forth legislation receiving fewer than 20 “yes” votes.