The Colorado Capitol.

Lawmakers in the Colorado House passed some exceptions Tuesday to the controversial late fees in last year’s FASTER bill, including one that allows commercial trailer owners to avoid the fee if they can document they had idled that part of their fleet.

But the scope of the changes is limited and leaves most of the late fees in place.

Two bills on the subject – HB 1211 and HB 1212 – passed 62-2 with one absence. Rep. Ed Casso of Adams County and Rep. Jeanne Labuda of Denver, both Democrats, voted no.

They now go to the Senate.

One bill gives registration authorities – mostly county clerks – the ability to waive fees for an expanded number of reasons, and for commercial trailer owners to avoid the fee by documenting that they have idled the unregistered portion of their fleets.

HB 1212, sponsored by Rep. Joe Rice, a Littleton Democrat, and Sen. Gail Schwartz, a Democrat from Pitkin County, would allow clerks to consider certain circumstances, such as acts of God and weather-related delays, office closures and medical hardships. The bill directs the Department of Revenue to write the rules and regulations and ensure the policy is uniform across the state.

The bill was amended in the House Transportation and Energy Committee earlier this month to allow commercial trailer owners who idle part of their fleet to be exempt from the late fee when they re-register them as long as they can document that the trailers were not on the road in that time and the owner gives the business reason for it.

The second bill limits total late fees to $10, no matter how long the delay in registering, on non-motorized vehicles – here, read utility trailers and the like – that weigh up to 2,000 pounds.

Sponsored by Rep. Max Tyler, a Jefferson County Democrat, and Sen. Suzanne Williams, an Arapahoe County Democrat, HB 1211 would allow the county governments to retain that $10 instead of going into the FASTER program.

Left in place would be the $25 monthly late fees, up to a cap of $100, on other late registrations. Under previous law, clerks could waive all or a portion of the fees. But FASTER did away with that discretion.

The changes had the support of FASTER backers as well as last year’s opponents in the House.

FASTER was passed last year to address a critical shortfall in transportation funding. Amid the controversy surrounding it, critics tried to label it a tax increase rather than a fee, while supporters said it is a fee on vehicles that is tied directly to their use of poor-rated bridges and roads. The revenues are earmarked to a separate Bridge Enterprise Fund, charged with repair or replacement of the state highway system’s poor bridges, which currently number 124, and to a Road Safety Fund for repair of poor-rated roads. Colorado’s cities and counties share in the fund for repairs to non-state highways.

This table shows the fee schedule set under the FASTER Bill to fund transportation road and bridge safety projects.

The fees are on a sliding scale by vehicle weight, and the bridge fee is phased in over three years. By 2012, the average passenger car will be charged a total of $41 – $23 for the road fund and $18 for the bridge fee.

FASTER has been drawn into the gun sights of anti-tax activists who have petitioned three measures onto the fall ballot that, among other things, would eliminate the FASTER fees and, in fact, effectively all of the user fees collected from vehicles owners at registration to help pay for the cost of roads and bridges.

Even with all this controversy, the $250 million per year that FASTER is estimated to raise – the first new revenue stream earmarked to transportation infrastructure in 18 years – is still only half the amount experts say is needed just for the state, counties and cities to play catch-up with deferred maintenance.

Pulling back on some of the late fees is projected to cost the program an estimated $413,000 a year. Budget forecasters hadn’t figured on a lot of the late fees in their FASTER revenue projections. So between sessions, lawmakers agreed to make some adjustments to address the criticism.