By State Representative Rob Nosse
By the time you read this, the Oregon legislature will have met for a special legislative session to fund transportation in our state, something we should have been able to do in the regular session. Usually when I write this column, I shy away from making predictions on things that haven’t come to pass. That has proven to be a good practice, as I have to submit this column around the third week of the month and making predictions in politics is hard. I talked about this in my column in June where under the same deadline submissions I would have predicted that the Oregon Legislature would pass a transportation package and, well, I would have been wrong.
In my June column, I talked about a prediction being a Dewey Defeats Truman moment. For younger readers who might not understand the reference, during the presidential election of 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune mistakenly printed the now infamous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” when it appeared that Dewey was going to win the election, only for it to be revealed later in the night that President Harry Truman actually won the election.
For this column I am going to take that chance and predict that the Oregon House passed a transportation package on August 29 and our state senate did so on September 1. This is a big deal—the transportation package—and the chance I am taking seems worth it. I am literally crossing my fingers as I write this.
Here’s what I went to Salem to vote for: a six-cent increase in the gas tax, bringing Oregon’s total state gas tax up to 46 cents; a $42 dollar increase in registration fees for five different vehicle types which include: low mileage vehicles (as in, cars and trucks that get between zero and 39 miles per gallon); vehicles that get 40 or more miles per gallon; electric vehicles; utility trailers or light trailers, and low speed vehicles; mopeds and motorcycles; and an additional $139 in titling fees. There will also be a $30 surcharge on top of the $42 increase in the base rate for vehicles that get 40 or more miles per gallon and electric vehicles to account for the gas taxes that they do not pay in light of fuel efficiency and being an electric car. There will also be a 0.1 percent increase in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund (STIF), the payroll tax we pay to better fund transit services.
I voted for this package because it is necessary to keep the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) running and operating and it will help PBOT here in Portland and other city and county road departments across our state do the same. (ODOT layoffs were announced right after the end of the 2025 legislative session and those won’t have to happen now.) This means ODOT workers who drive snowplows or keep highways safe during bad accidents will stay on the job. TriMet also made the news earlier this summer announcing layoffs and service cuts. I’m confident that doubling the payroll tax will mean the worst of those reductions and layoffs won’t come to pass. This proposal is a solid midterm fix. It prevents/stops the potential bleed as they would say. Layoffs and service cuts are prevented, although in the case of TriMet we may have more to figure out but this gives us some time.
The increases are modest and fair. I drive an electric car, and I need to help pay for the cost of road maintenance and upkeep as I am not buying gas and thus not paying gas taxes anymore. Other suggestions like cutting the ODOT budget or spending other money in the state budget that is being spent on schools and health care are not serious solutions. (By the way, we did make some cuts to the ODOT budget.) The bottom line is that these taxes and fees are how we pay for roads and bridges and their upkeep. Again, I voted yes.
Last year, legislators on the Joint Committee on Transportation embarked on a statewide tour where they heard firsthand about the growing needs for more transportation funding. Everywhere they went, whether it was Portland, Eastern Oregon, the coast or Southern Oregon, the story was the same—transportation agencies needed more money. The costs to deliver services—maintaining roads and bridges and paying the people that do the work—has vastly outpaced the revenues coming in.
I am also predicting that enough Republicans will show up for the legislature to have a quorum. Heck I will even predict that a Republican or two voted for this, insofar that they will see the need for this for the state and their parts of the world. I am confident the governor is signing the bill into law as soon as it passes.
For readers who do not think we did enough or worry about the lack of funding for “Safe Routes to Schools” and “Great Streets” I am confident we will come back to those initiatives and their need for funding. Maybe there will be transportation bills in the 2026 session, but for sure there will be bills about transportation in the 2027 session. We may try another funding package that includes figuring out a more modern way of paying for road and bridge maintenance in light of more electric vehicles coming online. Stay tuned.
