The first time she read the ordinance, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Joanne Lanigan saw room for legal confusion.
How, she wondered, could Cook County collect a newly imposed tax on diesel fuel when the law failed to differentiate between the stuff that goes into a car or truck and the stuff that heats the home?
But sometime between March 21, when Lanigan ruled the county’s 6-cents-a-gallon diesel fuel tax unconstitutionally vague, and Wednesday, when she reversed her decision, the judge’s objections to the language of the controversial tax were quieted.
So, in granting the county’s motion to reconsider her initial verdict, Lanigan on Wednesday announced that she had decided that the wording of the ordinance, which went into effect on Jan. 1, was no longer vague.
Lanigan’s reversal apparently came after she reviewed testimony in the case, including the deposition that was not entered into evidence, which led her to conclude that people in the industry clearly knew the difference between diesel fuel for trucks and diesel for heating.
The latest ruling means the county can now receive the $2.2 million that has been collected and put in an escrow account since the new tax took effect. County officials estimate that the 6-cents-a-gallon tax on diesel fuel sold in Cook County will raise about $11 million a year in revenue.
County Board President John Stroger said he was “gratified” by Lanigan’s acknowledgment that “our revenue ordinance was neither vague nor unfair.”
But industry officials, who filed the lawsuit after the Cook County Board approved the tax last November, vowed to appeal Lanigan’s decision.
William Brejcha, one of the attorneys representing the trucking companies, said one avenue for appeal would be the contention that Lanigan relied on a fuel distributor’s deposition, despite the fact that “it wasn’t in evidence,” to help her reverse her original decision. In the deposition, the distributor said the term home heating fuel was commonly known in the trucking industry to represent a different type of diesel fuel than is used in vehicles.
Michael Moran, head of Moran Trucking in Elk Grove Village and one of the plaintiffs that brought the suit, said the diesel tax could drive him out of business–or to Wisconsin or Indiana.
Moran, whose trucks burn 400,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year, said he could save 30 cents a gallon by fueling his 60 trucks elsewhere.
“I spent the last 20 years of my life building up a business,” Moran said. “But I can run that business from Kenosha.”
Trucking officials warned that imposition of the tax would mean the loss of jobs.
“There will be closures. There will be companies leaving,” said Fred Serpe, Illinois Transportation Association executive director.
The flap over the tax started shortly after the Cook County Board approved the levy as part of $39 million in new taxes contained in the county’s 1997 budget.
