Back in 2000, state government set up a “Blue Ribbon Commission” that determined Nevada’s tax structure was unstable. Subsequent events proved the Commission’s conclusions incorrect, but not before its work was twisted around to support the largest percentage tax-and-spend hike in Nevada’s history.

Now, a second “Blue-Ribbon Commission” is looking at our highway funding issues.

There are several such problems:

• Under Governor Guinn’s leadership, Nevada has been on a borrowing spree to fund rapid road construction. Now, our credit is tapped, and we can’t borrow as much to keep building roads at our current pace. Worse, the payments on our borrowings are taking a big bite out of our existing road construction revenue.
• Primary funding sources for Nevada’s roads are the federal government and the gas tax, currently one of the highest gas taxes in America (api.org article, chart). This tax is expressed in cents per gallon, and its proceeds lost purchasing power each year as construction costs inflate but tax proceeds per gallon do not.
• Our vehicles are becoming more fuel efficient, meaning we’re using fewer gallons of gas (and paying less gas tax) per hundred miles of driving than ever before.

This latest “Blue Ribbon Committee” concluded that Nevada faces a $3.8-billion dollar shortfall over the next 8 years. But there are deep flaws in the report and its structure:

• Foremost amongst them is that the BRC relied heavily on Nevada’s rogue Department of Transportation (NDOT), which stopped using the federally-prescribed “Cost-Benefit Analysis” method of prioritizing projects 12 years ago because the results differed from the agency’s political prioritization of projects.
• The “shortfall” is based on long-term estimates of revenue and expense that have not been independently reviewed for accuracy or sensibility. Because these estimates are long-term, small mistakes are magnified into big changes in the final “shortfall” figure.
• The list of ten major projects that “must” be done by 2015 include serveral that don’t make sense.
• The agency’s “crown jewel” is a $600-million dollar project between Reno and Carson City of such engineering complexity that the first contractor quit a quarter of the way through. It was selected, for reasons no one can explain, over a $120-million dollar alternative that would have expanded the existing road alignment to provide exactly the same increase in capacity.
• The second most dominant force in crafting the BRC’s findings, after NDOT, were local government representatives. Thus, the BRC never seriously considered having local government meaningfully participate in funding transportation requirements.

The Legislature considered a host of new taxes to fund transportation this week.

There is some good news on the horizon. Our new governor has appointed a new director of the Department of Transportation, and impressive agency engineer who has vowed to bring back “cost-benefit analysis” and an objective system of prioritizing projects.

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