VDOT Collecting Comments For I-95 Improvements

Legislation I supported and secured amendments to during the 2019 General Assembly directed CTB to initiate a data-driven study to develop the I-95 Corridor Plan to identify key problem areas, identify potential solutions and areas for additional review and study including investments in transit.  Here is the bill:

SJR 276 - Interstate 95 Corridor Improvement Plan Study 

In just the last four years, we have:

• Invested $80 million in Virginia Railway Express
• Enacted a floor on the local gas tax that provides ongoing funding to Fairfax, Prince William and Stafford transit
• Funded the widening of the I-95 southbound Occoquan bottleneck
• Enacted $39.2 million dedicated to I-95 improvements
• Negotiated the extension of the HOT lanes to Fredericksburg and secured $277 million of funding for additional projects in the I-95 Corridor.

How Much New Transportation Money Is Actually Coming?

Now that a transportation funding bill has passed, constituents have been asking me about funding new road improvements.  However, there's really not as much money as people think. 

In Virginia, all roads are state roads.  Roads are divided into interstates, primary roads and secondary roads.  Primary roads are under 600 - U.S. 1, Mt. Vernon Highway, Telegraph Road.  Secondary roads are numbered 600 and higher - like Fort Hunt Road, Sherwood Hall Lane, residential streets, etc.

Secondary road money comes from the state but is prioritized by the Counties.  For the last two years, Fairfax County has effectively received $0 from the state to make any improvements for secondary roads.  This has halted all widenings, speed bumps, sidewalk construction, turn lanes, new stop lights - everything.

The transportation legislation passed last session added new money into the transportation system for the first time in 27 years.  Much of the new money is going to plug the maintenance shortfall - paving, bridgework, etc.  Plus, $300 million goes to the Silver Line off the top. 

One reason I voted against the bill was because I said it was not enough money to solve the needs in the 44th District or the entire state.  In reality, it's only about 20% of the total projected statewide shortfall over the next 20 years.

Hybrid Tax Petition Delivered - Two Days Till Decision

Last Monday, Senator Adam Ebbin and I delivered nearly 7,000 signatures on our No Hybrid Tax Petition to Governor Robert McDonnell at the State Capitol in Richmond.  You can read more about it here:

Washington Post, Prius Tax Foes Urge McDonnell to Kill It
Richmond Times Dispatch, Hybrid Tax Foes Take Tax Fight To the Governor

Virginian Pilot - Tea Party Seeks Road Bill Veto, Others Want Hybrid Fee Gone

Roanoke WDBJ7 - More than 6,800 Signatures Against Hybrid Tax Dropped Off at Governor's Office

We delivered the petition to the Governor and his staff told us that he did review the petitions and the over 6,000 comments. 

As of noon today, 7,195 people have signed the petition.  You can still sign up here:

No Hybrid Tax Petition 

The hybrid tax fails to make sense on a number of levels:

• It punishes people for doing the right thing - conserving energy.
• The $100 tax bears no relationship to the gas taxes that are avoided (at most $30/year on a 45 MPG vehicle)
• The Federal and State Government have been encouraging people to purchase hybrid technology while this punishes people.
• Hybrid owners already pay their fair share of taxes including (1) 10% higher price for the car, (2) greater titling taxes, (3) greater personal property taxes, (4) $25/yr. for clean energy license plates, and (5) $3,000+ for a new battery after 150,000 miles.
• The tax is irrational.  There are other vehicles that get better gas mileage than many hybrids such as motor cycles and mopeds.  There are also gas vehicles that get better mileage than most hybrids, and many hybrids that get worse gas mileage than many gas powered cars. 
• It also inordinately punishes Northern Virginia where 82% of hybrids are registered in Virginia.

The Governor has to act by Monday, March 25, 2013. 

Hopefully, he will do the right thing and offer an amendment deleting the hybrid tax from the legislation. 

Weekly Column: The Final Week: U.S. 1 Funding Secured and A Transportation Deal

The following is my column that will appear in the Mt. Vernon Gazette, The Mt. Vernon Voice and Patch in the week of February 26, 2013.

The Final Week: U.S. 1 Funding Secured and A Transportation Deal

This week, the General Assembly ended with a budget and two major policy changes - a historic transportation bill and a Medicaid expansion process that I will discuss next week. 
 

The budget reported and now on the Governor’s desk contained a $2 million line item to pay for a Tier I Study of U.S. 1 pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act that I’ve been fighting to secure for four years.  This is the next legally required step towards laying the groundwork for actual major improvements to U.S. 1 between Woodlawn and I-495. 

 

The transportation bill (HB2313) has statewide and local components.  The statewide component repeals the $0.175 gas tax at the pump and replaces it with a 3.5% unleaded tax and 6.0% diesel tax on wholesalers equal to about a $0.10-0.12/gallon tax at the pump.

Veto the Hybrid Tax

Transportation dominated the debate this session.

Governor McDonnell's original bill (HB2313) contained a $100 annual fee for all hybrid vehicles.  That fee was rejected by both the House and Senate versions of the legislation passed.  However, when compromise legislation was reported, the $100 hybrid tax reappeared.

This is bad policy.                      

• The Hybrid Tax punishes saving energy. Virginia needs to create incentives to encourage energy conservation so America can be energy independent.  Most states are giving tax credits for hybrid purchases, not punishing owners. 
• The Hybrid Tax is a punitive tax.  The typical hybrid vehicle saves less than $35 per year in gas taxes - a $100 annual fee has no relationship to anything.
• The Hybrid Tax is unfair.  There are many non-hybrid vehicles that get better MPG than hybrids.  They don't pay the tax.  This indiscriminately picks on one technology.
• Hybrid owners already pay their fair share.  Hybrids already cost 10% more than other cars and there is no personal property tax phaseout for vehicles worth more than $20,000.                            
• The Hybrid Tax will barely generate revenue.  There are only 92,000 hybrids in Virginia - 1.3% of the entire vehicle fleet.               
• The Hybrid Tax picks on Northern Virginia.  83% of Virginia clean fuel plates are registered in Northern Virginia.  This is one more example of Northern Virginia being used as a statewide piggy bank.                         

State Senator Adam Ebbin and I have set up a petition to Governor McDonnell.  PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK:

NO VIRGINIA HYBRID TAX PETITION TO GOV. MCDONNELL

Will you sign? 

We need to send Governor McDonnell a message that this is bad policy and he should line-item veto the $100 Hybrid Tax from HB2313.  All signatures will be delivered to Governor McDonnell.

Delegate Scott Surovell
Senator Adam Ebbin

Weekly Column: The Final Stretch: Progress on U.S. 1, Transportation Negotiations and School Reform

The following is my column that will appear in the Mt. Vernon Gazette, The Mt. Vernon Voice and Patch in the week of February 19, 2013.

The Final Stretch: Progress on U.S. 1, Transportation Negotiations and School Reform

As we move to the end of the General Assembly session, we are engaged in intense negotiations on the major issues. Also, we have had significant progress on U.S. 1.

Earlier this session, Senator Puller and I culminated four years of work to build support for a U.S. 1 study when the McDonnell Administration confirmed that it is holding $2 million to fund the next U.S. 1 improvement study. Last week, I met with over a dozen state, local and regional stakeholders here in Richmond to discuss the next steps on planning U.S. 1 improvements.

The study will have several elements. It will likely focus on the stretch of U.S. 1 from the Occoquan River to Alexandria’s southern boundary. Second, there is a consensus that we must consider all modes of transit – Metrorail, light rail and bus rapid transit. Third, it will be based on the regional population, employment and household forecasts maintained by the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments (COG). Some of these estimates may be larger than those in the Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan. In addition, the study may include the impact that increased density has on transit ridership, if funding permits. We should know more specifics and timeframes in the next two weeks. We will issue a joint announcement and set up an informational website.

Weekly Column: New Virginia Currency, Crossover, Transportation and the State Budget

The following is my column that will appear in the Mt. Vernon Gazette, the Mt. Vernon Voice and Patch in the week of February 12, 2013.

New Virginia Currency, Crossover, Transportation and the State Budget

Last week in the General Assembly we hit “Crossover” on Tuesday – the day that each body must complete all work on their own bills. On Monday, I was in the capitol building from 7:30 a.m. until our session ended around 9:00 p.m.

That day, the House of Delegates passed legislation dedicating $17,440 of taxpayer funds to study the creation of a Virginia currency in case the Federal Reserve System fails. It passed on a mostly party-line vote.

Design Your Own Transportation Plan!

Transportation seems to be the hot topic this session.  The Governor has a plan, a few other delegates have popped out plans.  Lots of talk.

Given all of the various moving parts, things were getting fuzzy about exactly how much money was in play.  Earlier this week, I touched base with the some of the House's finance staff about the revenue generated by various options and came up with an interactive spreadsheet that allows you to game out various tax, fee and/or revenue proposals. 

After I made it available for public download, Taber Andrew Bain here in Richmond and Navid Oshan-Afshar over at The Tyson's Corner Blog set them up as full-on interactive do-it-yourself transportation calculators. 

You can build your own transportation funding plan here:

Bain Transportation Shortfall Calculator

The Tyson's Transportation Shortfall Calculator

Richmond Stuck On a Bad Budget

The press has started to heat up over the budget situation.  I was one of twenty-one delegates to vote "no" on the House Budget (HB30).  It has now been rejected by the State Senate.  Here are some of the reasons why I voted "no."

Earlier this week, I appeared at a press conference with my colleagues Delegate Patrick Hope and Senator Adam Ebbin in our press conference to discuss the problems with the current budget.  You can view our Press Release here and watch video of the press conference here:

• The Governor's and House Budget's transportation funding proposal in the budget is a gimmick.
• Our secondary education spending levels are still 10% below their peak in FY 2009.
• The proposed budget is laden with bad choices and special interest pork.
• The budget does not reflect the priorities of my district of the Commonwealth of Virginia given our current budget environment.

2012 Session Interview with Cable Reports

About two weeks ago, I was interviewed by the Cable Reports with the Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association and Cox Communications to provide an update of events in my district.

We talked about:

• Redistricting changes to the 44th District
• Congressional Redistricting
• Voter Suppression Legislation
• U.S. 1 Redevelopment
• K-12 Investments
• Higher Education Cuts

Here's the interview.

RTD Endorses Surovell Tax Cheat Whistleblower Legislation

Practicing law and litigating financial disputes, I get to look at a lot of financial statements and tax returns for quite a few businesses and people. One thing that has always shocked me is the amount of tax fraud that is out there and the lack of government enforcement.

Our tax system is largely based upon the honor system - honesty and voluntary compliance. Most people get a paycheck from someone else. Your income is reported to the IRS via a W-2 or 1099. Dividend income, capital gains from stock and mutual fund sales, mortgage interest, and real estate taxes paid are electronically reported by two parties. If you don't report all of it or claim too much of some deductions, the IRS computers will flag you and you will get assessed for a deficiency and the burden is on you to prove they are wrong.

Some estimates say that thirty to forty percent of taxpayers cheat on their returns. Estimates say this costs the federal government at least $300 to $400 billion per year - four times the Virginia Budget.

In Virginia, people who actually live in Virginia claim they live in other states to avoid paying 5.75% Virginia income taxes.

When it comes to small business, there are no computerized checks on gross income or business expenses. Most business owners over-deduct for cars, mobile phones, home offices, and equipment (computers) used for businesses that are primarily used for personal purposes. People claim life insurance is "key-man" insurance when it's really just regular life insurance. I could go on - I've seen some very creative accounting. Many businesses for sale like laundromats or restaurants openly brag about the percentage of their revenue in cash as a selling point - the implication being you can not report all of it.

It's not just income taxes. When I was a Governor's Fellow working in the Department of Motor Vehicles I learned about gas tax fraud. The mafia was bringing down tanker trucks full of heating oil and selling it as diesel gas (it is chemically identical) on I-81. Gas stations were listing gas for retail under the wholesale price because they weren't paying $0.33/gal. of state and federal gas taxes. Failure to report implicates meals taxes, hotel taxes and event taxes.

In the early days of the Bush Administration, IRS enforcement programs were completely gutted and largely defunded. Random audits dropped. Only 1% of taxpayers allegedly earning under $100,000 per year are audited. For people making $200,000 per year it's 3% and if you're lucky enough to make over $1,000,000 per year 8% odds.

In 2006, the U.S. Congress authorized an expanded whistleblower reward program. The regulations were implemented around 2008. If you blow the whistle on a federal tax cheat, you can receive a reward of between 15% to 30% of the recovery. However, I was surprised that Virginia has no similar program although tipping off the federal government is likely to result in recovered Virginia tax revenue. I did not think that was right.

California, Indiana, Illinois, Nevada and Rhode Island have adopted their own whistleblower reward programs, and I introduced HB 1805 which would have created a similar program in Virginia. Today, the Richmond Times Dispatch issued an editorial supporting my bill:

Start Snitchin'?

Using ordinary citizens as an extra set of eyes and ears for law enforcement is nothing new, and lawmakers do not seem to have tired of the concept —– as two bills introduced this year at the General Assembly attest.

HB1805 would award payments to citizens who brought tax-dodgers to state attention. The whistleblower could get up to 30 percent of the delinquent taxes collected. So far, so good. However, the legislation stipulates that the award system does not apply when the tax dodger earns less than $100,000 (or, for a business, $500,000).

Why the cutoff line? The entire notion of the rule of law rests on the principle that a person's station in life does not determine how the government treats him. A scofflaw is a scofflaw — period....

The House has passed the two measures by for the year, meaning they won't be taken up again until next session. Still, the mind wonders: Shouldn't Virginia lawmakers stand up for the toiling and exploited masses everywhere? Or are they singling out strip clubs in the hopes of doing some, er, undercover investigation?

At the Committee hearing on the bill, no one spoke against it and no one spoke for it. The Department of Taxation said they were agnostic about it. The bill was tabled although one member told me he thought it was a good idea.

If I'm lucky enough to be back next year, I will be refiling this one. Cheating on your taxes is un-American and I have zero tolerance for it.

NVTA Highlights Transportation Funding Challenges

Last week, the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance gave a briefing on the challenges facing Virginia's current transportation system. Their briefing is below.


Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance Presentation Regarding Challenges for Financing Virginia's Transp...

My law partner, Senator Chap Petersen, summarized it with some stats on his blog a few days ago.

The bottom line is that our transportation system is suffering from two decades of neglect. Significant revenues intended for construction are being siphoned off for maintenance and our federal highway matching funds will be endangered in the near future. Our current Six-Year Improvement Plan budget is actually less than (-$2.8B) our 2001 Six-Year Improvement Plan budget.

It's a depressing briefing. The position we are in today, is effectively like being asked to save for your child's college education in about 2 years instead of over the child's 18 year-lifetime leading up to college.