Some states want to punish fuel-efficient car drivers

Oregon looks at taxing mileage instead of gasoline
By RYAN KOST, Associated Press Writer Ryan Kost, Associated Press Writer
– Sat Jan 3, 7:38 am ET


PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring
ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of
how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring
devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as
Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric
hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely
with gasoline taxes.

"I'm glad we're taking a look at it before the potholes get so big that
we can't even get out of them," said Leroy Younglove, a Portland driver
who participated in a recent pilot program.

The proposal is not without critics, including drivers who are concerned
about privacy and others who fear the tax could eliminate the financial
incentive for buying efficient vehicles.

But Oregon is ahead of the nation in exploring the concept, even though
it will probably be years before any mileage tax is adopted.

Congress is talking about it, too. A congressional commission has
envisioned a system similar to the prototype Oregon tested in 2006-2007.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure
Financing is considering calling for higher gas taxes to keep highways,
bridges and transit programs in good shape.

But over the long term, commission members say, the nation should
consider taxing mileage rather than gasoline as drivers use more
fuel-efficient and electric vehicles.

As cars burn less fuel, "the gas tax isn't going to fill the bill," said
Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a member of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee.

The next Congress "could begin to set the stage, perhaps looking at some
much more robust pilot programs, to begin the research, to work with
manufacturers."

Gov. Ted Kulongoski has included development money for the tax in his
budget proposal, and interest is growing in a number of other states.

Governors in Idaho and Rhode Island have considered systems that would
require drivers to report their mileage when they register vehicles.

In North Carolina last month, a panel suggested charging motorists a
quarter-cent for every mile as a substitute for the gas tax.

James Whitty, the Oregon Department of Transportation employee in charge
of the state's effort, said he's also heard talk of mileage tax
proposals in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado and Minnesota.

"There is kind of a coalition that's naturally forming around this," he
said.

Also fueling the search for alternatives is the political difficulty of
raising gasoline taxes.

The federal gas tax has not been raised since 1993, and nearly two dozen
states have not changed their taxes since 1997, according to the
American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

In Oregon's pilot program, officials equipped 300 vehicles with GPS
transponders that worked wirelessly with service station pumps, allowing
drivers to pay their mileage tax just as they do their gas tax.

Whitty said the test, which involved two gas stations in the Portland
area, proved the idea could work.

Though the GPS devices did not track the cars' locations in great
detail, they could determine when a driver had left certain zones, such
as the state of Oregon. They also kept track of the time the driving was
done, so a premium could be charged for rush-hour mileage.

The proposal envisions a gradual change, with manufacturers installing
the technology in new vehicles because retrofitting old cars would be
too expensive. Owners of older vehicles would continue to pay gasoline
taxes.

The difference in tax based on mileage or on gasoline would be small —
"pennies per transaction at the pump," Whitty said.

But the mileage tax still faces several major obstacles.

For one, Oregon accounts for only a small part of auto sales, so the
state can't go it alone. A multistate or national system would be needed.

Another concern is that such devices could threaten privacy. Whitty said
he and his task force have assured people that the program does not
track detailed movement and that driving history is not stored and
cannot be accessed by law enforcement agencies.

"I think most people will come to realize there is really no tracking
issue and will continue to buy new cars," Whitty said, noting that many
cell phones now come equipped with GPS, which has not deterred customers.

Others are worried that a mileage tax would undermine years of
incentives to switch toward more fuel-efficient vehicles.

"It doesn't seem fair," said Paul Niedergang of Portland, that a hybrid
would be taxed as much as his Dodge pickup. "I just think the gas tax
needs to be updated."

Lynda Williams, also of Portland, was not immediately sold on the idea
but said it was worth consideration.

"We all have to be open-minded," she said. "Our current system just
isn't working."

 

Oregon has cheap ($54 for a car for 2 years) vehicle registrations and no
sales tax. However, we have higher income taxes (9%) and property taxes
(while our property values decreased, the property taxes went up the maximum
3% again this year. Oregon also gives a $1,500 state income tax credit for
purchase of any hybrid car without sales quotas or model limits. However,
Oregonians are protective of their privacy and may force it to a vote if
proposed or enacted. I'm not going to have someone stick a(nother) GPS in my
'07 Camry Hybrid. DeFazio is my Rep. and I usually like his actions, but I
think they should be looking elsewhere for revenues to fix roads. Maybe
vehicle weights could be factored into registrations, but that would be hard
to do with interstate trucks, unless states adopt similar systems, which
they won't. Heavier vehicles may do more wear. Also, with gas prices way
back down (for now), adding a few cents tax may not be so bad. But aren't
road and bridge projects supposed to be a big part of the next economic
stimulus package? Frankly I think miles driven is only marginally related to
road wear. Seems like another case where some people choose a conclusion or
action then work backwards to try to come up for a rationale for doing it -
like not letting us pump our own gas, the only state left now that NJ
changed its law.
...................................................................
January 20, 2009 - The End of an Error

 

This has been kicking around for a while now - I must have seen the first
mention in the AP a couple years ago. Oregon has some odd ideas from time to
time. And of course my home state of Arizona never has any odd ideas ;-)

Mike

 

Look for states and cities to increase taxes anyway they can. They are
all having problems due to the economic downturn. My city just passed a
5.5% increase on the water bill. Same old story, when times are good
they increase and expand service, when times get worse they just
increase the taxes instead of cutting back. Yesterday's do-gooder
program and public service all of a sudden becomes today's necessity.
One of the things that happens to often is some company presents a
package deal to the PTB that doesn't cost them anything and they share
the revenue with the company. Stoplight and speed cameras, GPS, buying
highways or bridges and turning them into toll roads etc.

 

Our town was urged to conserve water during the last "drought". People
cut back and the next thing you know the municipal authority raised
rates because "so may people were conserving water that revenue was
down". Our reward for conserving was higher costs. Last summer they
again urged us to conserve water because supplies were down due to
lack of rain, I don't know of too many who complied.

 

Evan Meacham. I'd put a smiley, but he wasn't anything to smile about.
Oh, what the heck

-- Michelle

 

GPS... that's just overkill. Just double the fuel tax if they're so
worried. What's next - a GPS for every bicycle? A personal GPS for
every time you use the bus?

Silly.

Michael

 

Well then I guess you should replace yourselves with someone competent to
do the job and/or get the Feds to pay their fair share. Both are the
problem here. Nothing else.

 

That was the first thing I thought of when I heard this proposal.
Someone has to do all the programming and logistics on this and I
can't see the state hiring a programmer.

This is a total bullshit proposal. If people are burning less gas per
dollar of needed road work, then raise the gas tax. People driving
hybrids will pay the same as they paid pre-hybrid and people driving
gas guzzlers can suck it up or get with the program. If plug-ins
become a factor, they should have an input ammeter which could be
accessed a road tax.

BTW, I don't recall them lowering the gas tax when people started
driving land barges.

 

Them is us.

 

Better yet, the alt-fuel fiasco. For those outside AZ, almost a decade ago a
genius in our state legislature, the late Jeff Groscost, was indebted to
somebody who wanted to sell flex-fuel conversions. He pushed through a bill
that provided spectacular incentives to buy alternative or flex-fuel
vehicles. It was officially projected to cost the state only a few million
but was shut down around the $600 million mark, then dialed back to about
$200 mil.
www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=14196
Yeehaw!

Or the Diamondback's stadium, which was turned down by voters and then
green-lighted by the county supervisors, which earned one of them a bullet
in the backside. Don't forget a recent governor (Fife Symington) and an
attorney general (Ned Warren Sr.) who were found guilty of fraud. Or the car
bombing of reporter Don Bolles, which resulted in the most bizarre
investigation imaginable; one that included immunity for a prime suspect -
he even reported three of his vehicles stolen the day of the murder - in
return for his "theory" of the crime (check out a couple of the books about
it: "Loud and Clear" and "The Arizona Project"). Y'all come on over to the
dark side... it'll be a hoot!

Mike

 

That happened between my residences in the state. Wasn't Symington
involved with that in some manner or another?

-- Michelle

 

This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Glade someone on here
gets my point, thanks.

 

No. Symington lied about his assets on large real estate loan applications.
He had his own odd dealings, such as enraging the tribes around the Valley
by reneging on the agreements that allowed the casinos to operate on tribal
land. That led to a brief shutting down of the lane of Pima road that was on
tribal land. I may have the details askew, but things like that are too
weird to make up!

Ooh - I did forget to include the case of Ken R. Kunes, who was the Maricopa
county assessor for the first decade or so I was in Arizona. I always
thought it was unusual that we should have to make out our car registration
checks to "Ken R. Kunes, county ass." After a while his teflon must have
worn thin and a county prosecutor decided to go after him. The scam was that
all the money went into an interest-bearing account in the name of Ken R.
Kunes. (I assume it was not in Lincoln S&L, one of the "savings and loan"
institutions of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five ) On the appointed day of
each month the amount actually due was transferred to a county account,
leaving behind a tiny fraction of a cent interest on each of the hundreds of
millions of dollars that passed through the account every year. In the end
he was allowed to keep the money and was not prosecuted in return for
agreeing not to run for re-election.

And then there is our current governor, who inexplicably renamed Squaw Peak
"Piestewa Peak" when she could have renamed it after another native who was
more local and a genuine hero of more than half a century: Ira Hayes. Hayes
was one of the Marines who raised the flag atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima
and one of the three who lived to tell about it. Lori Piestewa was just a
soldier who died in an ambush.

At least we aren't as weird as them Californians! ;-)

Mike

 

She was also the first American woman to die in combat in Iraq, and the
first Native American woman to die in combat, period.

Many other governors could have named something after Ira Hayes, but
none of them did, so why single out Janet Napolitano for not doing it?

Regardless, even if it were wrong for her to do so, it pales in
comparison to the other stuff you related.

-- Michelle

 

I agree - I have few complaints about Napolitano and this is admittedly a
carping one. It is not in the same league with the many more outrageous
scandals Arizona has in its recent past. It just seemed clueless - and still
does - that she would pass up the opportunity to rename the peak (which was
clearly her purpose) to honor a major Arizona figure - especially one who
was a local and who gained such national fame - in favor of somebody who
will be "who?" and "so what?" within a generation. There was quite a flap
about the guideline that the honoree be of fifty years' standing and it was
an insult to the O'odham, both embarrassments she could have avoided. I
believe she just didn't give it much thought.

Mike

 

What about fixing all the damage the DEMONrats have done over the years?

 

What about fixing all the damage the DEMONrats have done over the
years?[/QUOTE]

Miniscule compared to the carnage wreaked by the Repugnants. The GOP
(which, contrary to their wishes, is not God's Own Party) is a hotbed of
liars, crooks, thieves, miscreants, and scoundrels. They don't give a
shit about the country; they're interested only in their own welfare and
their own flawed ideology.

Yeah, the Democrats have a few like that too; William Jefferson and the
governor of Illinois come to mind, but as a whole the party stands head
and shoulders above the cess pool that calls itself the GOP.

 

Don't waste your time. Anyone posting here in support of the
Republicans is a tool of the neo-cons and severely brainwashed to
believe that the GOP is going to help them in some way.
Unfortunately, the GOP was taken over by the neo's some years ago and
exists only to feather the beds of the exceedingly rich.

I do admire the incredible brainwashing they've done though. You can
watch these tools fiercely defend GOP policies using the nonsense
their head has been stuffed with - all the time failing to see how
they are being screwed by the same policies.

Yeah, the Dem's are nothing to write home about either. They're
sincere, but very ineffective. Still, they never allowed the party to
be hijacked the way the GOP has been in the last few decades.

 

The DEMONrats are full of subversives, incompetents and various sexual
deviates.