New Report Examines Gasoline Tax Proposals in Various States (AASHTO)
The success or failure of state-level plans to increase gas taxes can be tied to how the media covers those proposals, concludes a recently released report from the University of Vermont Transportation Research Center. The report examines six states — Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Vermont — where lawmakers debated raising gas taxes between 2006 and 2009 to close infrastructure gaps.
Those proposed increases were approved by the state legislatures in Minnesota in 2008, and Vermont and Oregon in 2009. In Idaho and Massachusetts, governor-proposed increases were rejected by lawmakers. The New Hampshire State Senate voted down a measure to increase the gas tax that had been approved by that state’s House of Representatives.
“Clearly, there are many possible explanations for the success and failure of gasoline tax increases at the state level,” acknowledges the report. “In each state, the details of the policy debate, the relationships between political parties and policy actors, and the overall context differ.”
Nonetheless, the report does draw on news coverage of those proposals in the local media as well as Associated Press wire service reports to find at least some clues to the ultimate policy outcomes. States such as Minnesota and Vermont, as outlined in the report, proved successful in enacting gas tax increases due to the huge emphasis on phrases like “crumbling infrastructure” in news reports. That imagery of aging and crumbling infrastructure, the report notes, proved especially resonant among lawmakers and the public.
Oregon, the report underscores, proved similarly successful in pushing through an increase because of the focus on economic progress. “Policymakers in the legislature and executive branch consistently emphasized the link between gas-tax increases and job creation,” according to the report.
The gas tax increase proposals fared less well in states like Idaho and Massachusetts, the report suggests, because the stress was on long-term transportation budget gaps and financing mechanisms rather than more evocative phrases. “In both states, the debate in the news discourse became about transportation funding, not the deteriorating system,” according to the report. “In Massachusetts, the debate became particularly complicated because of competing revenue raising proposals and legislative and executive branch initiatives to restructure the state transportation agencies.”
These case studies of media coverage and proposed gas tax increases, the report indicates, might also hold valuable lessons with respect to the ongoing debate over the federal surface transportation reauthorization. “The data suggest that in the states where the news discourse emphasized either crumbling infrastructure or economic progress there was a corresponding success in the policy domain for pro-gas-tax policy-makers,” the report concludes.
A copy of this 21-page report, “Gasoline Taxes: An Examination of News Media Discourse Related to Gas Tax Funding in Six States,” is available at http://tinyurl.com/UVTRC-Report.
