CWPMA is happy to support that the Transportation Legislative Review committee has shelved commercialization of rest areas at this time. I want to thank our partners at CMCA for their support. We were the only to groups opposed to this subversion of private investment and community support.
Attached is a letter that we had submitted to TLRC which explains our concerns. I want to Thank Chairman Booth, Vice Chair Hill, and Treasurer Haldorson for their review.
From the letter:
- Based on taxpayer subsidization programs envisioned in the Federal Infrastructure bill and the State’s Sb-260, a fueling station operator has merely to hold his hand out and tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of E.V. station directed dollars will literally fall into their hands. There are no requirements for return on the state’s investment, nor any obligation on behalf of the station owner to maintain that subsidy, yet when that station is built that station owner still has responsibilities including taxes and responsibilities to our county and city partners.
- The decision to locate a station on an interstate, or state highway, is one that engenders investment, risk, and a tacit agreement then when a government permits that facility to be built that they won’t seek to undermine it. TLRC’s proposed bill undermines that and undercuts taxpayer investments and the tacit agreement that interstate operators make with the state and local government partners.
This measure may come back in the General legislative session, that said it is likely with the forthcoming shift in the federal House of representatives, hopefully this prohibition does not fall at the federal level.