(The Center Square) – Democratic lawmakers who sponsored a failed bill to add more fees for Colorado vehicle owners pledged to try again next legislative session.
House Bill 25-1303 failed to advance past the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday after passing the House last week. The bill would have established a “crash prevention” state enterprise to pay for certain road infrastructure improvements and, according to bill sponsors, would subsequently lower car insurance costs.
The legislation would have implemented a $3 annual fee on all car insurance policy holders, raising an estimated $32 million total in fees over the next two years.
“Reducing the number of collisions between motor vehicles, particularly motor vehicles that enclose occupants, and unenclosed vulnerable road users and wildlife would reduce expensive insurance claims and improve transportation safety,” reads the bill, sponsored by House Speaker Pro Tempore Andy Boesenecker, D-Fort Collins; Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, and Sens. Dylan Roberts, D-Avon, and Faith Winter, D-Westminster.
The bill’s Senate sponsors told the committee they plan on continuing work on the legislation in the interim. The Colorado General Assembly is set to adjourn May 7.
“We came to you with a proposal of 25 cents a month (or) $3 a year for something that we know would save Coloradans’ lives,” Roberts told the committee Tuesday before the bill was postponed indefinitely. “I’m very saddened that the Senate Finance Committee did not have enough support to move that proposal forward.”
“We’re not done. We’re going to keep working on this,” he added.
Republicans in both chambers who generally oppose more fee increases and government enterprises also opposed HB 25-1303.
State Rep. Scott Bottoms, R-Colorado Springs, wrote in a recent Complete Colorado op-ed about the bill: “Gee, what a novel idea – spending transportation money to make driving in the state safer! A cynic might ask, ‘isn’t that the kind of thing we’re already paying gas taxes and vehicle registration fees for? Don’t we already fork over money for better and safer roads virtually every week? Why are Democrats now forcing us to pay even more?’ This bill is the transportation tip jar.”
Bottoms noted Democrats’ passage of Senate Bill 260 in 2021, which created a host of new fees paid for by drivers to fund transportation infrastructure and was projected to bring in $3.8 billion in revenue.
