Committee concurs on three brief transportation bills: fuel-tax point of taxation, right‑of‑way filing cleanup and transit roles clarified

The Montana Senate Transportation Committee concurred in three House bills after brief hearings and largely uncontested testimony.

House Bill 351: point of taxation for fuel Representative Courtney Sprunger (House District 7) said HB351 shifts the point of taxation for fuel to the first licensed distributor who owns the fuel after withdrawal from a terminal or after import into Montana, rather than the last distributor to possess the fuel. The change does not increase the fuel tax rate, she said, but is intended to reduce redundant transaction tracking by the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT). "In terms of volume, we process about 85,000 lines of these transactions a month," Larry Flynn, deputy director of MDT, told the committee, and…