Are We Ready for a New Kind of Gas Tax?
February 5th, 2010 // 3:33 pm @ Miss Electric
Slide from Basso Presention: DC Auto Show
On Public Policy Day at the D.C. Auto Show this year, we got wind of some dire news. The Federal Highway Trust Fund is slowly depleting because gas taxes have not been raised in 17 years. While the federal gas tax has remained constant, the spending power of the 18 cents a gallon used for transportation improvements has decreased due to inflation.
Raising gas taxes is, as we know, akin to political suicide. However, the country is is need of a serious transportation infrastructure facelift. Are we ready for a new kind of gas tax?
This is the question posed by Jack Basso, from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. In his presentation, he mentioned that the U.S. is currently investing only about 40% of what the country should be spending on improvements to our transportation system. To be able to accommodate the mobility demands of the public, he states that we would need a total $545 billion investment over the next five years.
So, what is the solution? Basso states that there are policy considerations for a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax. No specific details were given, but Basso did note that there are a few advantages for a VMT tax over a standard gas tax. One, it avoids the gas tax political impasse (though this could spark its own political controversy). Second, it provides a way for the government to collect funds from vehicles that rely on other sources of energy (like plug-in vehicles).
Of course, there will also be some issues that will need to be figured out for a VMT tax to be implemented. Will the tax be per vehicle or per driver? How often will VMT be computed? How will it be verified? And, the most striking question of all, what price will the VMT tax be set?
While those of us in the green car scene may have hoped that using less petroleum translates into fewer taxes, the VMT tax would most likely treat all vehicles the same. Perhaps this is only fair, since miles driven is a better approximate of the use of the highway system over gallons of gasoline consumed. It also begins to settle some early fears that the use of plug-in vehicles (such as the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt) may lead to less funding for highway improvements.
This policy conversation is just starting and I suspect that it could get heated fairly quickly. It also has me wondering about other policy alternatives for transportation funding.
Category : Plug-In Policies
Paul C from Austin
7 months ago
Couldn’t agree more on the gas tax. No one, including me, wants higher taxes, but our roads gotta be paid for somehow. I would let the Feds raise the gas tax by another 50 cents, at least- use it to update our current infrastructure, including bridges, and invest in an EV/Renewable Energy infrastructure.
However, I shudder at the thought of a VMT- could there be a more cludgy, complicated way to gather a tax? The overhead cost for equipment and people to measure the equipment would be idiotic, only enriching the companies that provide said equipment- much better to collect more taxes thru a current method that won’t add any more extraneous costs- raise income tax, for example, and set aside that small percentage of Income Tax permanantly for our transportation infrastructure. Only a politician could make something so easy so complicated;-)