If the state Senate gets its way, North Carolina will join a small but growing number of states that collect extra fees or taxes from drivers of all-electric cars and hybrid fuel-electric cars.

I'm reporting on this issue. I'd like to hear from drivers of all types of cars: electrics, hybrids, and old-school fuel: What do you think about the proposed new fees? Please email me with your name and daytime contact info. Tell me your name, what car you drive, and what MPG you're getting.

The budget rolling through the Senate this week includes new annual fees of $100 for electric cars and $50 for hybrids. The Senate figures this would generate an extra $1.5 million a year for state transportation needs.

The rationale for electric cars is straightforward: They use our public roads, but their drivers don't pay the fuel taxes that help build and maintain the roads.

When it comes to hybrids, the issue is murkier: They use gas or diesel fuel, so their drivers already pay fuel taxes. Are hybrid owners to be penalized for taking steps to improve their fuel economy?

Here are some of the transportation funding and policy changes outlined in the proposed Senate budget (PDF) released Sunday. Some of these are new proposals, and others were previously aired this spring in separate legislation:

Try to acquire federal land around Oregon Inlet: The Oregon Inlet Land Acquisition Task Force is established to study the state's options for acquiring land around the Oregon Inlet from the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service so the state can preserve the navigability of Oregon Inlet.

Charge tolls on all ferries: Order the state Department of Transportation to begin collecting tolls on all seven ferry routes by November 1, with rates high enough to generate $5 million to $10 million a year in revenues. This would include tolls on the two routes that the General Assembly said last year would stay toll-free: Hatteras Inlet and Currituck Sound. [MORE] ...

Have you had problems with toll charges from the N.C. Turnpike Authority for your trips on the Triangle Expressway? If so, I'd like to hear from you.

(1/30/13 update: N.C. Turnpike Authority double-bills hundreds of TriEx drivers.)

Drivers now pay tolls three different ways: by mail, or through debit accounts attached to N.C. Quick Pass or E-ZPass transponders. Some TriEx drivers have reported confusion about which way their tolls are collected.

Please email me about your billing problems, including duplicate charges for the same trip. Don't forget to include your name and daytime phone number.

Republican legislative leaders are in tune with the concerns of Democrat Gene Conti, who complained this week that he is underpaid as the state’s transportation secretary.

That’s why they amended the state budget this year to give North Carolina’s next governor new power to set salaries for non-elected state department heads.

“These agencies have gotten huge in terms of budget and responsibility,” said state Sen. Richard Stevens of Cary, one of the Senate’s chief budget-writers.  

Conti said he took a big pay cut in 2009 when he gave up a private-sector job to take charge of DOT, with its $4 billion budget and 12,000 employees. Stevens agreed with Conti that the statutory salary limit – $121,807 this year for the heads of DOT and seven other agencies – could make it hard for the state to attract the best administrators. ... [MORE]

A budget corrections bill being heard this morning in the House Appropriations Committee includes a provision to postpone the ferry toll hikes originally scheduled, in the state budget bill adopted last week, to start in the fiscal year that begins July 1. (4pm update: The committee approved the changes. Now they go to the House floor, then the Senate.)

Instead, the increased rates for three routes now tolled and the new tolls for routes now toll-free would not begin until fiscal year 2014 (which starts in July 2013). The measure also would appropriate an extra $2.5 million for the DOT Ferry Division, to make up for the revenue that had been expected from the increased ferry tolls.

If the House and Senate approve this latest change in ferry toll rates and timing, it will move back to the original position favored by the House and Gov. Bev Perdue. They agreed this spring to postpone the tolls out of concern for economic hardship in ferry-dependent coastal communities. In the budget passed last week, the legislature had granted a one-year reprieve only for riders on the toll-free Cherry Branch ferry.

As its vehicle for budget corrections, the House used Senate Bill 187, a proposal to outlaw the red-light camera traffic enforcement programs in Raleigh, Cary, Knightdale and Willmington.  Red-light cameras are not mentioned in the revised bill moving through House Appropriations this morning, so the traffic programs will not face elimination.

Here's what's at stake with state budget maneuvers over funding for two new toll projects:

The state Department of Transportation plans to finance the Garden Parkway and the Mid-Currituck Bridge mostly with tolls collected from the drivers that will use them. The legislature already has authorized millions of dollars for planning and preliminary work on these two toll projects.

But DOT doesn’t expect to collect enough in tolls to pay the whole cost of operating and maintaining the road and the bridge, and repaying the money that will be borrowed to finance their construction.

To provide that missing money, the General Assembly has agreed in recent years to make annual “gap” payments for toll roads and bridges.

Each year’s budget now includes gap payments of $25 million for the Triangle Expressway in Research Triangle Park and western Wake County, which opened in January, and $24 million for the planned Monroe Connector Bypass in Union and Mecklenburg counties.

The House proposed in May to add $35 million for the Garden Parkway in Gaston and Mecklenburg counties, and $28 million for the Mid-Currituck Bridge in Currituck County, both starting in 2013. But Senate leaders wanted to cut that money to $15 million for the bridge and $17.5 million for the parkway.

Leaders of both chambers agreed Wednesday to cut all gap money for the Garden Parkway and Mid-Currituck Bridge from the 2013 budget.

Included in the budget agreement rolled out today are provisions that:

* Direct the Department of Transportation to start collecting new and increased ferry tolls that had been ordered in the budget a year ago, but with some changes:

 - The busy Hatteras – Ocracoke ferry across Hatteras Inlet and the Knotts Island ferry across Currituck Sound will remain toll-free, as legislators had agreed in 2011.  Senate leaders previously favored tolls on these routes, too. 

 - The House and Gov. Bev Perdue had proposed to delay the new tolls for a year, citing economic hardship in ferry-dependent coastal communities. The leaders of both chambers agreed in the new budget to give a one-year reprieve only for riders on one route: the Cherry Branch – Minnesott Beach ferry across the Neuse River, which serves Cherry Point commuters.

- Riders on the Pamlico River ferry in Beaufort County, which also serves commuters, will have to start paying tolls for the first time.

* Cut $63 million in funding for the planned Garden Parkway near Charlotte and Mid-Currituck Bridge toll projects on the northern Outer Banks, because DOT officials have said they will not be ready to spend the money in the coming year. 

* Drop a Senate proposal to charge a statewide fee of $45 for teens under age 18 who take driver education class.  Local school systems are still authorized to collect a fee of up to $45, to make up for a cut in state funding last year.

* Eliminate the state’s New Starts program that supplements federal money for urban rail transit projects. The remaining $25 million in the fund will be earmarked for Charlotte’s light-rail line, which has been the only New Starts beneficiary to date. Local officials in the Triangle and other communities with plans for light-rail now will have to compete with highway projects for state money.

* Cut the gas tax, now 38.9 cents per gallon, to a maximum 37.5 cents for the coming year.

* Cut $26 million from a state fund for paving dirt roads and improving other secondary roads.

Documents:

The Senate Rules Committee chairman launched an investigation today into what he called "fraudulent" letters sent to legislators last week that appeared to reverse the state Department of Transportation's position on the need for $63 million in start-up funds for two toll projects (see today's story with reader comments).

Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Hendersonville Republican, said DOT officials would be asked to speak at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning, and representatives of Gov. Bev Perdue's office would be asked to speak at a second hearing Thursday morning.

The letters were drafted Thursday morning by Perdue staffers on DOT stationery and over the signature of Jim Trogdon, DOT's chief operating officer, and appeared to reverse a recommendation Trogdon had made in a June 8 memo to legislative leaders. ... [MORE]

The Senate budget released Monday is good news for people who want more pavement for more dirt roads -- and bad news for Ocracoke residents, tourists, commuters and others who rely on the state ferry system.

The Senate rejects proposals by the House and Gov. Bev Perdue to postpone new and increased tolls on state ferry routes – and the Senate goes farther by refusing to exempt two ferries that both chambers had agreed last year to keep toll-free.

Perdue had issued an executive order refusing to collect the new tolls.  The Senate budget explicitly attacks her order as "an unconstitutional attempt to exercise authority" that Perdue does not have, and it orders the Department of Transportation to ignore it.

House leaders had agreed with Perdue that ferry-dependent communities deserve a reprieve while they recover from the effects of recessiona and Hurricane Irene.  The House budget proposed to give the ferry division an extra $2.5 million, to make up for the additional revenues that had been expected from the postponed ferry tolls.

The Senate budget directs the Department of Transportation to institute the higher rates and to collect tolls on all seven DOT ferry routes. That includes two that were exempted a year ago: the Currituck-Knotts Island ferry, used by public school buses, and the state’s busiest ferry route from Hatteras to Ocracoke, used heavily by tourists and Ocracoke residents.

The Senate proposes to kill urban New Starts and regional transit grant programs worth $28 million.  And the Senate would spend $22 million more than the House to put asphalt on unpaved roads.

House transportation budget writers decided Thursday where to absorb an expected drop in gas tax collections next year, and they delivered the biggest spending cut to the state's program for paving gravel roads and improving paved secondary roads.

The House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee accepted a plea from Rep. Phil Shepard, a Jacksonville Republican, to ease the damage that a proposed budget would have caused for rural and urban transit programs.  The panel agreed to cut public transit grants by $2.6 million instead of the $8.6 million originally proposed, and it shifted the $6 million difference to the secondary road construction fund.

“Our transit system takes people to the doctor and dialysis and many places our senior citizens can’t get to, in the city (Jacksonville) and in the county (Onslow),” Shepard said in an interview. He said he saw less need for money to pave gravel roads.  (The House transportation money report and Shepard's amendment - which changes some numbers in the money report - are attached to this blog post.) ... [MORE]