Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax On Fuel Efficient Vehicles 686
Hugh Pickens writes "Facing a $10 billion revenue shortfall for transportation financing, the Oregon Legislature is expected to consider a bill to require drivers with a vehicle getting at least 55 miles per gallon of gasoline to pay a per-mile tax after 2015 to offset the loss in tax revenue for fuel efficient cars at the gas pump, where the government has traditionally collected money to build and fix roads. Oregonians currently pay 30 cents per gallon, a tax that is automatically added at the pump, but as cars become more fuel efficient and alternative fuel sources are identified, state officials project gas tax revenue will decline. 'Everybody uses the road, and if some pay and some don't, then that's an unfair situation that's got to be resolved,' says Jim Whitty of the Department of Transportation. Opponents of the Oregon proposal say it will hurt a new industry. 'It will be one more obstacle that the industry and auto dealers will face in convincing consumers to buy these new cars,' says Paul Cosgrove, a lobbyist for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Other states, such as Nevada and Washington, are also looking at a per-mile charge and a Washington law that would charge electric car owners an annual fee goes into effect in February. Oregon did a pilot study of the mileage tax (PDF) where participants paid 1.56 cents per mile and got a credit for any gasoline tax they paid at the pump. Although initial media portrayals of the system were almost uniformly negative, 91% of test participants preferred the mileage tax to paying gas taxes."
Re:I'd like to see the Texas legislature try. (Score:4, Informative)
Hey Oregon: (Score:5, Informative)
Awesome idea! Please impose a per-mile tax on fuel efficient vehicles such as hybrids.
By the way, you might want to review your existing $1500 rebate for purchasing said hybrid:
http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/cons/res/tax/docs/hybridform.pdf [oregon.gov]
[reaches into bag of applicable figures of speech]
Let's see:
Left hand doesn't know what the right hand... no, wait...
Rebates giveth, and per-mile taxes taketh... WAIT, NO I GOT IT!
Stop being stupid.
Re:Raising gas taxes is the only sane answer (Score:1, Informative)
An engineer friend told me that road damage is proportional to the fourth power of the weight, so an SUV that weighs 5500 pounds [cadillac.com] will wear the roads approximately 10 times faster than a hybrid that weights 3000 pounds [toyota.com]
I can tell you that you're flat-out wrong on that damage part. How do I know this? I work for a state DOT...
Re:Or they could just increase gas tax (Score:5, Informative)
22-30mpg is crap. I've had better mileage than that for over a decade even on US made autos.
Re:Gas guzzlers should be taxed out of existence. (Score:5, Informative)
It's worse than just "weight" - I've heard that road wear is proportional to axle weight to the 4th power. You know those semis that have the sign, "This truck pays $XX,XXX yearly in road use taxes"? Compared to the road wear they cause, they're still under-paying.
Re:How do they do it? (Score:5, Informative)
That's the problem. It *does* have to be perfect. Oregon is *not allowed*, by the US Constitution, to tax your driving out of state. Unless they can *prove* to a reasonable standard that they are not taxing out-of-state mileage, they can't do it.
You didn't read his post (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah cutting spending is such a crazy idea. The poster above you didn't suggest a single thing you said. He said to cut admin costs and stop paying the equivalent of ditch diggers union salaries. Nobody is saying to shut down the cops/fire/ems/road crews. What they are saying is take a good look at where the money is being pissed away. Eventually you're going to run out of things to tax.
Re:Of all states? (Score:5, Informative)
In engineering classes about 30 years ago, I learned that road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of the weight per axle. Looks like it has not changed. [wikipedia.org] Nothing says that the tax cannot be based on this model.
Note the not all road damage is a result of bending and flexing due to axle weight. You also get chemical changes (salt, water, oil, pollution), thermal cycling (daily and seasonal), topographical changes (a.k.a. earth quakes), and utilities dig-up. You also have non-damage items like mowing the grass, paying for lighting, interest on debt, etc. that must be considered a part of road maintenance. So, you really should not assign all of the maintenance costs to be based on axle weight if you really wanted to be fair about such things.
You may have noticed the signs on the back of trucks that mention something like, This vehicle pays $5,889 in road use taxes per year. According to this study in 2007 [mackinac.org] the average total tax burden was $13,889 total (for a 80,000 lb truck) and $397 per year for an automobile.
Consider that an 18 wheeler is over 20 times the weight of an average automobile (distributed over 5 axles, though not uniformly). So, ignoring the non-uniformities in automobile weight and axle weight distributions vehicle -- the axle weight related damage should be component should be roughly
(20/5)**4 : (1/2)**4 which equals 4**4 : 1/16 which equals 256 * 16 : 1 i.e., 4096:1
Considering only the 4th power rule component only, avg. damage for truck are roughly 4000 times that of a car. Actual studies [spokesman.com] show this is more like about 10000:1
it is probably a safe bet that trucks are proportionately undertaxed everywhere in the US.
Re:Raising gas taxes is the only sane answer (Score:5, Informative)
The law was determined empirically, but professionally enough [pavementinteractive.org].
(I can wish the info above will increase your willingness to look a bit more for info than whatever your DOT responsibilities require you to ... I don't know, possibly to delay the onset of the Peter's principle [wikipedia.org]. May be good for you and for the citizens of your state)
Re:Political Correctness (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I have a better idea (Score:5, Informative)
This article disputes your general premise. Government workers make more than private sector for the same education level.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/29/federal-state-workers-overpaid/ [dailyfinance.com]
Do you have any references to support your claim?
Thanks
Re:What about people who bus, bike or walk? (Score:4, Informative)
It's 9600 cars not 7000. I love google.
http://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/ [vabike.org]
Re:What about people who bus, bike or walk? (Score:5, Informative)
Put it on a train. Trains are so much more efficient for freight than trucks.
Re:Or they could just increase gas tax (Score:5, Informative)
It's a shame that fuel costs are making it expensive for big trucks. Fortunately the free market can sort that out - trucking heavy things long distances will become more expensive, and maybe more efficient transport will become more competitive.
The amount of damage caused to the road by a vehicle goes up as the FOURTH power of the vehicle's weight. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/091116/03.htm [dot.gov]
So I have no issue with the cost of trucking going up - right now, it's the big rigs that don't pay their share of the road costs, not the drivers of light, efficient cars.
Unbelievable (Score:2, Informative)
Unbelievably stupid idea. I'm sorry to the citizens of the USA, but is it any wonder that most of the rest of the world thinks that your country is populated, at least 50%, by morons? Global warming? Peak oil? Pollution? Oh wait: Intelligent Design. God will no doubt save you.