But anyone within 100 miles of D. C. had better get ready on Monday, this is building steam... Fast
LINCOLN, Maine — The Coalition to Lower Fuel Prices hopes to roll on Washington, D.C., later this month as part of a national truckers rally and is holding a meeting Sunday to gear up for it.
The grass-roots coalition, which has four truckers aid bills it initiated in the State House, including a temporary sales tax repeal almost set to pass, wants to contribute to a rolling rally on the nation’s capital, tentatively scheduled for April 28.
"It is going to come down to who can afford to go," coalition co-founder Belinda Raymond of Kingman said Wednesday. "We are going to ask that if there are larger companies that would sponsor a truck that wants to go, that might be helpful."
Nationwide, trucker protests have been continual but disorganized, unified only in their cause: diesel fuel prices that average about $4 a gallon nationally and go as high as $4.25 per gallon in Maine, according to mainegasprices.com.
In Nebraska, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Georgia, truckers have held or are organizing strikes, rolls on state capitals, slowdowns on interstate roads or truck shutdowns alongside them as protests. The unified D.C. protest might be the largest display yet.
"The trucking industry is uniting across the nation to send a message to the president that things have got to change. Diesel prices are killing everybody — airlines, everybody — and things have got to change," Raymond said.
The coalition will meet at the Knights of Columbus Hall off Route 6 at 9 a.m. Sunday to drum up support for the Washington protest and to update members as to how the bills are doing, Raymond said. The public is invited.
In Maine, forest products industry truckers — who make up much of the coalition’s membership — are the connective tissue of the state’s forest products industry, hauling product from woods to mills to market. The industry is worth an estimated $11 billion to Maine’s economy annually.
Higher diesel prices have caused at least 50 independent Maine haulers to park their trucks, sparking fears that a lack of trucks could create a lack of raw materials for mills, according to the coalition.
In response to coalition efforts, legislators are working on bills that would repeal state fuel sales taxes, temporarily repeal sales taxes on forest products equipment and parts purchases, increase overall and per-axle truck weight limits, and restructure the fining system for truckers.
The bill refunding sales taxes on purchases of parts and supplies for forest products industry truckers unanimously passed the state House on Wednesday. It is expected to pass the state Senate by Friday. As amended, the refund would be retroactive to April 1 and discontinued on Oct. 1, 2008.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono, was pleased that it was headed for passage. She was less hopeful about the state fuel tax repeal, saying that, as first proposed, it would effectively deny Maine $7 million in revenue when the state is facing record shortfalls.
"I’ve worked hard to get it funded, but clearly [lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee] are not going to fund $7 million for this," Schneider said Wednesday.
She hopes to dial down the bill’s scope to a more manageable $1 million, she said.