Seven years ago I blogged about California's new legislation to study a vehical miles traveled (VMT) tax as an alternative to the gasoline excise tax (10/4/14 post). Oregon had already been studying one.
In July 2015, a Senate Finance Committee working group - working on tax reform, discussed a VMT in its report on infrastructure in reference to issues with the gasoline excise tax and Highway Trust Fund. Basically, with people driving more fuel efficient cars including electric cars that don't use any gasoline, not enough money goes to the HTF. And the gasoline excise tax has been 18.4 cents per mile since 1993! It is not adjusted for inflation and hasn't been increased. The HTF has needed General Fund contributions since at least 2008 (the 2015 Senate report notes that over $65 billion had been transferred since 2008).
The 2015 report suggests a VMT as long-term option to fund the HTF. The working group noted that a VMT "has the potential to imprve the efficiency of highway financing because the tax can be calibrated closely to the costs that vehicles impose in terms of rod damage an dcongestion. Additionally, the tax coud be calculated based on time of day, congestion, type of road, type of vehicle, etc."
The Senate working group noted that it "take up to a decade to fully implement" a VMT. BUT, unfortunately, nothing was started!
I had this topic on my calendar for a while because I was going to note that the Build Back Better plan doesn't address the problems with the gasoline excise tax or suggest implementing a VMT. A lot of study has already been done on a VMT by Oregon and California, academics and think tanks. We should move on it.
But new news - H.R. 3684, INVEST in America Act, the infrastructure bill passed by the Senate on 8/10/21 by a vote of 69-30, includes at Sec. 1630, a requirement that the GAO do a study on "per-mile user fee equity" within 2 years of enactment. This study would look at various issues of a per-mile user fee system including its effect on low-income individauls and the ability to access jobs and services.
Given use of the term "fee" and no reference to the gasoline excise tax, sounds like if such a fee were implemented, it would be in addition to the gasoline excise tax.
So, it is good that the concept of a VMT at the federal level is not completely forgotten, but more is needed to replace the out-dated gasoline excise tax with something more appropriate for funding the HTF. Let's see if something more comprehensive gets into the infrastructure bill. I think we need action rather than just more study.
What do you think?
2 comments:
Very interesting, Professor Nellen! I was not familiar with this area of taxation and learned from your blog. It makes sense to tax accordance to utilization. Thanks for keeping us informed on this topic.
If President Biden wants half of new car sales to consist of EVs by 2030, we’re going to need a revised method of funding the HTF very soon. I think the VMT is a fair method, but I haven’t seen a proposal that adequately addresses measurement vs. privacy concerns and the regressive nature of the tax. Looking forward to this study as it’s long overdue!
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