I’ll update reactions to the Kaine transportation package as information comes out.
Environmental/conservation community: The first e-mail to my inbox came a press release from a coalition of environmental and conservation groups: Withholding comment on most of the Governor’s package, they praised the provision that would empower local governments to block rezoning projects that would overwhelm local/regional roads. (I will link to the full text when the press release is posted online.)
“Nothing has harnessed public frustration over out-of-control growth and won public support like Governor Kaine’s promise to ensure local governments and citizens have the ‘power to say no,’” said Lisa Guthrie, Executive Director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters.
House of Delegates: The House leadership has responded negatively to the Kaine plan, focusing on the proposed tax increase rather than opportunities for land use reform. Said Del. Leo Wardrup, R-Virginia Beach, chairman of the House transportation committee (no link):
It’s déjà vu all over again. It seems like just yesterday this Governor was breaking is campaign promise to not raise taxes less than a week after taking his inaugural oath. But here he is again, proposing a huge statewide tax increase that he promoted in town hall meetings across the state and still failed to win public or legislative support. It’s perplexing that he so readily abandoned a central campaign promise against higher taxes, yet remains adamantly opposed to any proposal that doesn’t
include a statewide tax increase.
From the Times-Dispatch:
Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, declared that the governor “has become irrelevant to the transportation debate. He’s been AWOL since last January.” His plan is “not even warmed-over leftovers but just remnants pulled out of the refrigerator,” said Cox, a budget negotiator and leading force in the House GOP caucus.
From the Washington Post:
Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) said Kaine’s transportation proposal “relies on the same ideas that have proven unsuccessful in the past. . . . While the people of Virginia want something done about transportation, they are not prepared to pay higher taxes, either.” …
“I don’t know how you could argue with that,” former Fairfax Chamber of Commerce chairman Michael Anzilotti said after the governor’s speech. “You cannot get through this session again without getting something done. We’re not going to tolerate it.”
John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said, “This year, Governor Kaine’s transportation revenue proposal will give [lawmakers] the chance to redeem themselves and, if enacted, will spare commuters from the consequences of Virginia’s worsening transportation funding crisis.”
And David Guernsey, chairman of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, said reluctant lawmakers should think twice before rejecting Kaine’s proposals out of hand.
From the Roanoke Times:
Sen. Charles Hawkins, R-Chatham, called Kaine’s revised proposal “a good start.” Hawkins, the chief sponsor of last year’s Senate transportation package, said lawmakers “need to get the funding in place this year.”
“Even the people in the rural areas are starting to realize what the impact of doing nothing is going to have on us,” Hawkins said.
