Posted on 05/21/2005 8:56:17 AM PDT by agitator
Oregon tests novel mileage tax
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The program is the first step in a long-term plan to replace the state's gasoline tax, which pays for about 40 percent of Oregon 's road projects. As in many states, Oregon officials are worried gas tax revenues won’t be able to keep up with the rising costs of road building, especially with improved mileage from both traditional and hybrid cards.
Driver advocates and environmentalists said they will be watching the new program to make sure that it charges drivers fairly and that it does not give consumers an excuse to keep driving gas-guzzling cars.
Testing will start in September when the state transportation department plans to equip 20 privately owned cars with electronic odometers to record their mileage at gas stations. When drivers fill up, specially equipped gas pumps will read the mileage and charge 1.2 cents for every mile driven instead of the state's tax of 24 cents per gallon of gas.
The cars also will have Global Positioning Systems (GPS) so drivers will not be charged for driving outside state borders -- the tax is only meant to be applied for use of Oregon roads. Tracking cars' locations also could allow extra fees for traveling in congested traffic areas or during rush hours. Drivers also could be charged less if their car is more fuel-efficient, said James Whitty, manager of the Oregon Department of Transportation division that is overseeing the project.
A bigger, year-long test of 280 cars is scheduled to start in March 2006. After that, the state transportation department will make recommendations to the Legislature on whether to phase in the new-fangled tax statewide, possibly over 20 years to ease privacy concerns and spread out the costs of the new technology.
Elliott Eki, spokesman for the Oregon AAA, said the state absolutely needs to find a new source of money to build roads and bridges. But charging drivers more for driving in congested areas could force more people to use neighborhood streets to avoid extra fees.
Chris Hagerbaumer, a transportation specialist with the nonprofit Oregon Environmental Council, said the state should impose such a new tax slowly. "The issue is, if we make a flat switch, we would lose the incentives for people to purchase fuel-efficient cars," she said.
The mileage tax was the main recommendation of a 2001 state task force studying new ways to pay for road projects, which rely heavily on gasoline taxes. Those fees lost much of their purchasing power as the inflation of the 1970s and 1980s increased the costs of road projects. At the same time, carmakers began to slowly improve fuel efficiency, so that drivers were, in effect, paying less to use the roads, the task force found.
Oregon raised its gas taxes six times from 1981 to 1991 to keep highway funds flush, but politicians have been unable to muster the political will for any increases since then.
In the next decade, gas tax revenues in Oregon are projected to level off, then permanently decline as rising gas prices push consumers to drive less or buy more efficient hybrid electric or other alternatively fueled cars.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) has said his state will become the 10th to adopt more stringent auto pollution standards than the federal government, standards likely to be achieved through greater fuel efficiency.
The number of hybrid vehicles in Oregon grew by 103 percent from 2003 to 2004, the second-highest percentage increase in the nation after New Jersey, according to R.L. Polk & Co., an automotive data-collection firm. The number of hybrids increased across the nation by 81 percent over the same period, the analysts found.
Send your comments on this story to: letters@stateline.org. Selected reader feedback will be posted in the Letters to the editor section.
Contact Eric Kelderman at: ekelderman@stateline.org
This is the final straw. I was thinking about moving out of Oregon and this new tax convinced me finally to take the necessary steps. Driving my automobile at 38 mpg will cost me at least $ 250 more per year with this mileage tax.
F#@K Oregon!
675+ views, maybe 15 clicks on the link in my first comments below the article, and I'll bet nobody read beyond the first paragraph. We're doomed.
I got one for you. Show me where the cost of building roads has risen above the amount of money taken in by the states each year by gas taxes. Gas tax revenues do increase every year by virture of more drivers on the highway.
Whether gas taxes are tied to inflation or not has nothing to do with it, what counts is the amount of revenue taken in compared to the amount needed to be spent.
States do NOT use the gas tax money for road building or bridge repairing. We need to vote tax happy legislators out of office and if you truly believe we can't get rid of them I feel sorry for you. You have already given up and resigned yourself to 10 dollars gas so we won't have road taxes. It is THIS type of attitude that burdens us with taxes not a "lapse" in gas taxes. Gas taxes have never lapsed in this country they keep right on building and increasing the coffers with every new driver.
"Driving my automobile at 38 mpg will cost me at least $ 250 more per year with this mileage tax. "
Don't move to Texas. If you drive 20,000 miles per year, half on toll roads, figure on paying something like $1,500 to $2,000 more per year.
I would kill to see the gas tax be raised 20 cents per gallon instead, since that would only cost me something like $100-$200 per year, and I wouldn't have this damn government watching everywhere I drive.
Me. Donning my tinfoil hat. Hiding.
California does not even keep the roads they have now in repair. When I was young CA had wonderful roads, now they are all crap. The reason? It is simple. The cost of following the enviros rules on building or repairing anything keeps a lot of the work from being done, and then also all of our monies from gas taxes are used somewhere else. Those are the two biggest reasons with the money being pissed away on other projects of the legislature, which of course are mainly libs, being at the top. They do the same thing with the lottery money that was supposed to be earmarked for schools, spend in on other things.
They are follwing the lead of the US legislatures that decided that SS money could be spent for anything but SS.
It isn't a matter of taxing gas more, it is a matter of responsible spending and the voters have to start voting these tax and spend people out of office. That is the easiest and most effective solution for every state.
As long as liberals have contol and republicans are too spinless to do anything about it, then we will have the problem of not enough money for anything let alone roads.
The solution for them is simple, tax us and shackle us with control devices that will enable them to keep track of us day and night so we will be good slaves.
Vote them out, don't vote for more taxes, vote for better government, but do it soon.
BobL, I find your defeatist attitude towards taxation curiously repulsive. You may roll over and play dead and allow state government to run roughshod over you, but I will openly fight excessive taxation all I can.
Had our founding fathers carried the same attitude, we would still be a subservient colony of Britain.
Living just across the river from Portland, Oregon, what Oregon does also affects me, although I rarely go there. We are currently fighting a phony governess in Washington with the same "tax them to death" attitude. I won't just sit around and accept excessive taxation. I work hard for what I earn and feel I am entitled to keep at least a little of it. Keeping the "you can't fight city hall" attitude just empowers the Liberal Taxinators to move us closer and closer to Socialism. It's not an easy fight, but fight them I will.
You guys got a long way to go to beat Maine.
"California does not even keep the roads they have now in repair."
I know it's a mess there, and the state wastes huge amounts of gas tax money - I'm just saying that the alternative (tolling, in any form) is actually much, much, worse, as you will get the worst of both.
The libertarian argument is that you charge tolls to "manage" the drivers, and clear the congestion - but try to imagine it - it is really SCARY.
"The Left hates autos"
Yeah,but they all DRIVE them!
Yes they are. I first realized that when I saw an interview on the BBC with one of the people in charge of traffic planning in London. Due to the extreme congestion there in the city, the stated goal of the traffic planning commission was to make it as difficult as possible for people to drive in the city. Therefore they encouraged on-street parking so as to clog up the streets and make it difficult to get around, they vetoed any new parking garage construction proposals so it would be difficult to find a place to park, they installed traffic lights where none was needed so traffic would back up at intersections, and so forth. I was stunned.
**highest in the nation road use tax.*8
Is this still ture? Probably going higher?
**Why the heck do you Oregonians keep electing them?" **
|Believe me, we're working to un-elect them. Just remember the big blue city -- Portland.
**Drill for oil and gas, build more oil refineries, build more power plants, including nuclear!**
Agree with you all the way.
Then, of course, the dimocrats have stalled the Energy Bill in the Senate. (We really need to get rid of Wyden.)
Wyden is a darling of the lunatic left. *sigh*
bump
Actually, the hummer will pay LESS tax per gallon. LOL.
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