Gov. Ferguson noncommittal on gas tax increase, Speaker of the House says

OLYMPIA – Gov. Bob Ferguson has not indicated whether he would support increasing the state’s gas tax, Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins told reporters Wednesday.

Jinkins, a Democrat from Tacoma, said while she’s had frequent conversations with the governor during the session, Ferguson “hasn’t expressed anything about transportation at all” and “certainly not on the revenue side.”

A spokesperson for Ferguson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, House and Senate transportation leaders unveiled bipartisan budget proposals that called for billions in new revenue, including increasing the state’s gas tax for the first time in nearly a decade. A package that passed the Senate over the weekend closes a roughly $1 billion budget gap in the state’s transportation budget between 2025 and 2027 and raises $10.2 billion over six years.

The plan includes a 6-cent increase to Washington’s gas tax, increased registration fees for electric vehicles and hybrids, and shifts 0.3% of the state’s sales tax, about $800 million a year, to the transportation budget.

As they unveiled the package last week, the heads of the Senate Transportation Committee said projects across the state, including the North Spokane Corridor, could face delays unless the state increases revenue.

House Transportation leaders also unveiled their budget last week, which calls for a 9-cent increase to the gas tax. Like in the Senate, leaders in the House said projects throughout the state could be delayed unless the state secures revenue.

As of Wednesday afternoon, though, Jinkins said she had not received input on either plan.

“I haven’t gotten that yet; doesn’t mean that we won’t,” she said.

Jinkins, along with other Democratic leadership from both the House and Senate, were scheduled to meet with Ferguson later Wednesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, Ferguson stated that he opposed the current House and Senate’s operating budgets, which rely on funding from a new “wealth tax” to raise revenue, though he did not indicate his stance on an array of other tax proposals the legislature has put forth, including on increasing the cap on yearly property tax increases.

“I appreciate all of the questions on different revenue sources, I’m just not going to engage in those, so I appreciate that,” Ferguson said. “Those are conversations we’re going to have, there’s a lot of negotiations to go on, but I’m just going to get into specific proposals right now.”