Senate Republican leaders Monday put the kibosh on any efforts to increase severance tax dollars to pay for the state water plan, an idea floated by Gov. John Hickenlooper last week at the Colorado Water Congress.

The state water plan carries a price tag estimated at $20 billion or more. While water providers are expected to carry much of that cost, the state’s share is estimated at $3 billion, with a hope to start that funding at $100 million per year for 30 years, starting in 2020.

Last week, Hickenlooper told the Colorado Water Congress that he could envision the state’s share coming out of severance taxes, although that would require some kind of structural change to raise those kinds of dollars.

Severance taxes have long been used for water projects, but those dollars have been dwindling. There are at least a couple of reasons for the decline: lower prices for oil and natural gas, although there’s been some recovery in that market. The second is a lawsuit from oil giant BP two years ago that used severance tax dollars to pay back personal property taxes that the Colorado Supreme Court said oil and gas companies were owed.

Another factor is that the General Assembly has not been shy to tap severance tax dollars to balance the budget in down times. That’s happened in the last two recessions, to the tune of $322 million.

The water plan has received severance tax dollars in the last two years to fund initial implementation in areas such as alternative transfers of water in agriculture, conservation and water efficiency.

Hickenlooper said a structural change to severance taxes would have to come from the General Assembly, and most likely through a ballot measure. He also said he’s hoping for a bipartisan solution to funding the water plan. One suggestion would be to change how severance taxes are charged, which currently ebb and flow with the changes in oil and gas prices.

Increasing* severance taxes for the water went over like a lead balloon with Senate GOP leaders Monday. “Absolutely not,” said Senate President Pro tem Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling. “I’m happy with the way we do it now,” he told reporters.

Sonnenberg said the state’s system for severance taxes works well, by charging more when the oil and gas companies make more. “There’s no appetite” among his caucus for changing that system.

Sonnenberg also disputed a claim by Hickenlooper that oil and gas CEOs wouldn’t object to changing the structure, since Colorado has some of the lowest severance tax rates in the nation. The lawmaker said that is not what he’s hearing from the industry.

Sonnenberg has said in recent days that he’s considering a bill after the March 20 revenue forecast comes out that would begin to pay back some of the $322 million borrowed from the severance tax funds. He would need permission from both the Senate President and Senate Majority Leader for a bill that late in the session, and he jokingly said he would beg for that permission.

He may have to. His severance tax bill would be paid for through some of the $1 billion surplus in state revenues that was reported in the December revenue forecasts from state economists. Those dollars are drawing a lot of interest from Senate Republicans, who have already introduced two bills designed to use up a substantial portion of those dollars.

Senate Republicans have made the top priority of the 2018 session a bill to use $300 million in existing state funds to begin to take care of some of the state’s $9 billion wish list for road and bridge repairs across the state. The first payment would come from that surplus revenue.

Sonnenberg and Senate President Kevin Grantham of Cañon City also sponsor a bill to reduce the state’s corporate and individual income tax rates by two-tenths of one-percent, which would take another $365 million out of the state’s revenues in 2018-19 and more in future years.

Clarification: clarified that Sonnenberg opposes an increase in severance taxes, not the use of severance taxes itself, which is already being used to pay for initial implementation of the water plan.