Eitan Arom: In search of higher ed funding, oil tax bill a dead end

The oil tax making its way through various committees in the California State Senate won’t raise gas prices at the pump.

It won’t destroy the California oil industry, the nation’s fourth largest. But it also won’t pass.

To begin with, Democrats no longer hold the two-thirds majority in the state Senate needed to pass tax bills. Besides, Gov. Jerry Brown issued what amounts to a “no new taxes” proclamation at the beginning of the year, meaning the bill is unlikely to obtain his signature even if it passes through the legislature.

The bill seeks to fund higher education, among other state services, by imposing a 9.5 percent tax on oil extracted from California. The text of the bill claims it would raise at least $1 billion in new revenues, with half of that distributed equally among the University of California, California Community Colleges and California State University. But of course, no law means no revenue.

So any political capital that students invest in passing the bill, known as Senate Bill 1017, is unlikely to see returns. That’s a point worth considering, given that the UC Student Association is making SB 1017 a major platform this year.

But even beyond its uncertain prospects, the bill is a roundabout way of financing higher education. Taxing oil to fund higher education is no more logical than taxing fast food to pay for highway repair or taxing cigarettes to pay for law enforcement.

Cigarettes, fast food and oil are all things that Californians should seek to avoid. But if the legislature wants to pass a sin tax, it should do so without using vital state services like higher education as an excuse. And if legislators need to sweeten the deal to get an oil tax passed, a much more persuasive target for the revenues would be an expansion of public transportation, which would curb the state’s use of oil in the first place.

While California’s reliance on oil may be a problem, it has little to do with higher education. So the UCSA, the primary lobby group for UC students, shouldn’t flex its muscles to help legislators turn university funding into a bargaining chip.

As it stands, lobbying for this stillborn piece of legislation is a politically convenient way for lawmakers to claim they support higher education. In fact, pushing to pass a dead bill distracts from real measures that can be taken to fund higher education, such as approving the $120.9 million sum the UC has asked for to pay down debts and increase enrollment.

Politicking with higher education is not a new phenomenon in Sacramento. In campaigning for Proposition 30 in 2012, Brown threatened drastic “trigger cuts” to the UC’s bottom line if the tax bill didn’t pass. Mind you, Proposition 30 didn’t raise any money for the UC, instead allocating revenues to community colleges and K-12 schools. But that didn’t prevent Brown from holding the UC at the edge of a cliff and promising to push it off if Californians didn’t pass the measure.

The student lobby understandably got behind Proposition 30. With a noose tightening around the UC’s neck, it didn’t have much of a choice. It does now.

Brown’s push to create a “rainy day” fund points to the fact that the money is there to bankroll a public university system. Higher education deserves new funds without having to open up new funding sources, and the UCSA should be telling legislators as much.

Putting forward an oil tax bill suggests that each sector of the state government has to find a particular industry to fund it, rather than the money coming from state coffers, essentially touching off a financial free-for-all to fund government services.

Instead, the legislature should give the public university line item the dignity it deserves by properly funding it out of the state’s General Fund. If new taxes are necessary to make sure that the whole pot doesn’t run dry, that’s a conversation we should be having.

But if the UCSA wants an equitable and practical way to fund higher education, then instead of rallying around a dead bill, it should push legislators to make a real, unconditional pledge to support higher education.

Maybe that requires a compact such as the ones often signed (though often broken) by California governors and the state’s institutions of higher learning. Or maybe it requires some university-level version of Proposition 98, which earmarks a certain portion of the state’s budget to K-12 education.

But first, it requires the respect of state legislators. Ultimately, that’s what the UCSA has to lobby for.

Email Arom at [email protected] or tweet him @Eitan_Arom. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us @DBOpinion.