If you remember Barry Smith’s Carolina Journal Online article on a proposal to institute a new state fee for drivers of electric and hybrid vehicles, you might be interested to read Bloomberg Businessweek‘s coverage of similar proposals in other states.
Gas taxes are one of the main sources of funding for bridges and roads. But people are driving more fuel-efficient cars, and many states’ tax rates haven’t kept up with inflation during the past decade. That’s left less money available for repairs. Nationwide, gas tax revenue declined every year from $40.7 billion in 2004 to $37.9 billion in 2010, according to inflation-adjusted data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group in Washington.
That’s a big reason Virginia and Washington State are levying green-car taxes and New Jersey, North Carolina, Indiana, and at least four other states are considering doing the same. “The intent is that people who use the roads pay for them,” says Arizona State Senator Steve Farley, a Democrat who wrote a bill to tax electric-car drivers 1¢ for every mile they log on state highways under a yet-to-be-devised tracking system. “Just because we have somebody who is getting out of doing it because they have an alternative form of fuel, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t pay for the roads.” …
… Oregon might have the answer. Lawmakers are considering charging the owners of green cars—and of any car that gets more than 55 miles per gallon—a flat annual fee of $542.50, or a usage fee of 1.55¢ per mile. How the state would track drivers’ mileage would still have to be worked out. But nobody would get a free ride.
