Traffic on Interstate 5 in Portland. It’s been a bumpy road for 2025 Transportation Reinvestment Package, or TRIP, meant to pay for road and bridge infrastructure and provide the Oregon Department of Transportation with funding needed to avoid a $350 million deficit in the year ahead and to avoid laying off up to 1,000 employees. (Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr)

It’s been a bumpy road for the now $11.7 billion Transportation Reinvestment Package that moves closer to passage in the last days of the 2025 legislative session

Dozens of people packed a room at the Capitol for the lone public hearing on a new proposal to raise taxes and fees on gas, car sales and payrolls and invest $11.7 billion over the next decade into roads, bridges and public transit.

A 155-page amendment to House Bill 2025 advanced from the Joint Committee on Transportation Investment on Thursday afternoon on a 8-4 vote, teeing up a Friday vote in the state House with a do pass recommendation. State Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, was the lone Republican who voted for it after opposing prior versions of the bill.

Mannix said the bill had issues, but he supports the accountability it will impose on the Oregon Department of Transportation, the funding for public transit and mechanisms to get road use fees from electric vehicle drivers who don’t pay the state gas tax.

“We’re finally going to address the need to have our electric cars pay their share, and that’s built into this bill, and it needs to be talked about,” he said in explaining his support.

The version lawmakers voted on is a slimmed-down version of the bill that previously came with a $14.6 billion price tag and had advanced to the House floor on a party-line vote last Friday.

If it passes in the Oregon House on Friday, it moves to the Oregon Senate, where it takes a minimum of three days between a bill’s first appearance and its final vote. Lawmakers could vote to waive the rule and pass it Friday or Saturday, or wait until Sunday, the last possible day of the legislative session.

It’s been a bumpy road for the bill dubbed the Transportation Reinvestment Package, or TRIP. Beyond investing in transportation infrastructure, the bill is meant to provide the Oregon Department of Transportation with funding needed to avoid a $350 million deficit in the year ahead and to avoid laying off up to 1,000 employees.

State Sen. Suzanne Weber, R-Tillamook, said she does not think the bill will ultimately pass both chambers.

“I think we need several more months to go over this. I think this was done too quickly, and I don’t think that we have a clear picture of the consequences of what we have produced here,” she said.

The amendment to House Bill 2025 would get rid of a proposed transfer tax of 1% for used cars and 2% for new cars, which critics have compared to a sales tax. It also would change the gas tax, which was scheduled to increase from 40 cents to 55 cents by 2028 in the original bill, instead raising it to 52 cents, with a 12-cent increase in 2026.

It maintains the proposed tripling of the payroll tax to fund public transit, going from 0.1% today to 0.18% starting in 2026, and 0.3% in 2030.

Any bills that increase taxes need support from at least 36 representatives and 18 senators — the exact number of Democrats in the Legislature. But Democrats aren’t assured of support from their own caucus.

State Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, has been opposed to the bill. On Thursday, he posted to social media claiming the bill would bring tolling back. Gov. Tina Kotek later issued a letter to lawmakers clarifying that the package includes no tolling. Meek has been missing from the Senate floor since Thursday afternoon.

Proposals from Democrats have remained unpopular among Republicans, who issued their own proposals that would not increase any taxes but instead direct millions of dollars from electric vehicle and bus programs, bike and pedestrian programs and climate programs to pay for road projects.

Meek and several other rank-and-file Democrats also raised concerns that the proposals were negotiated behind the scenes, leading to shakeups on the very committee meant to vet and pass the package.

By the time the Joint Committee on Transportation Investment met Thursday afternoon, two Democratic members had resigned. Senate co-chair Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, resigned Monday, citing concerns that he would be a distraction after Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, filed a hostile workplace complaint against him over him raising his voice at her during a Friday meeting. And Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, resigned out of frustration that he was excluded from negotiations.

Meanwhile, Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, removed Meek and took his place on the committee last Friday. By Monday, Wagner had also resigned and appointed Democratic Sens. Lew Frederick of Portland and James Manning Jr. of Eugene instead. He also named Sen. Khanh Phạm, D-Portland, as co-chair in Gorsek’s place.

More than 3,800 testimonies have been submitted on the bill so far. Of them, 950 expressed support and more than 2,700 were opposed. In the single hour of verbal testimony allowed on Thursday, leaders of several labor unions, environmental and public transportation organizations testified in support of the proposal. Trucking, farming, business and vehicle dealers’ associations testified in opposition.

Several representatives of labor unions testified in support of the bill, as well as groups involved in bike and public transportation and decarbonizing the transportation sector, who expressed a desire for more investment in vehicle electrification and charging infrastructure, but who advocated the package get passed.

House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, long-opposed to the bill, read an email from a constituent of hers who she said is thinking of moving out of state due to the high cost of living, and expressed concern that a higher gas tax will hurt them.

Boshart Davis, the vice chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Investment, shook her head as Democrats discussed the collaborative nature of the work on the package.