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DETROIT (AP) — Hours after being sworn in as the new U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy took aim at the main way the federal government regulates miles per gallon for cars and pickup trucks — also a principal way that it regulates air pollution and addresses climate change. Duffy ordered the federal agency in charge of fuel economy standards to reverse them as soon as possible. The standards have been in place since the 1970s energy crisis and were intended to conserve fuel and save consumers money at the gas pump.Here are five things to know about the action.What...

Buying a car is a major investment. Not only does it need to get you safely from point A to point B, but the vehicle should also be reliable for many years. However, rather than determining if a car is “good” by how long it lasts, experts recommend going by how many miles you can accrue on it without encountering any major issues. For example, a car with 100,000 miles in five years that only needed maintenance (oil change, tire rotation, for example) would be considered “better” than a car with 100,000 miles in seven years but needed major repairs.Here...

California has the highest income tax rate in the country (top tier of 14.4 percent). It has the highest statewide sales tax rate (7.25 percent, plus local sales taxes). It has the highest gas tax rate ($0.78 per gallon). Yet, it ranks third to last in the country in terms of road quality.The old joke is that California would tax the air we breathe if it could. Well, California’s latest tax proposal comes close. The state is recruiting drivers for a pilot program to track and tax the miles they drive.The plan is borne from the fact that Californians have...

Bad news for EV owners with range anxiety - a half of electric cars go don't even go as far as makers claim. A real-world test of 22 of the most popular electric cars has found that 10 fell short of their advertised range. The biggest difference between quoted and actual ranges was observed in a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range, which starts at around $70,000. It ran out of juice after covering 270 highway miles, 50 miles less than the EPA 320-mile estimate, according to a test by Consumer Reports. When a manufacturer sells an electric car...

Currently, the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standard requires a fleet average of 49 mpg for car manufacturers, which is already kinda ridiculous. And now here's what Biden and the Left want to do to that number: Biden Admin Wants 58 MPG Fuel Efficiency Standard By 2032 😂😂😂 Seriously, these people want us in electric vehicles, stat. There's no other way to look at this. The Biden administration on Friday announced a proposal to require raising fuel economy standards to 58 miles per gallon. The proposal, from the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), would aim for...

It turns out that the driving range of a fully-charged electric vehicle (EV) is shorter than advertised. The exaggerated range estimates are an artifact of testing procedures specified by the Environmental Protection Agency. Customers who have complained to the manufacturers have typically been rebuffed by the very useful "mileages may vary" escape clause. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm emphasized that "the key thing is that these EVs burn no gasoline. Given their massive positive contribution to the reduction of fuel consumption, the President's draw down of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve doesn't look as dangerous or stupid as the Republicans have...

Want to get an electric car? Well, if you want to drive that upgraded golf cart more than a few miles to work and back, you might need to think again, particularly if you’re thinking you might want to drive it at typical highway speeds. Such is what Car and Driver found in its hilarious review of the new, electric Mazda MX-30. And that’s not some old EV that should be resigned to the scrap heap at this point…it’s the 2022 model of the car. As background, the MX-30 is designed to be an EV for the average American worker...

For the final 6 months of 2022, the standard mileage rate for business travel will be 62.5 cents per mile, up 4 cents from the rate effective at the start of the year. The new rate for deductible medical or moving expenses (available for active-duty members of the military) will be 22 cents for the remainder of 2022, up 4 cents from the rate effective at the start of 2022. These new rates become effective July 1, 2022. In recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2022. The IRS normally...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major step to fight climate change, the Biden administration is raising vehicle mileage standards to significantly reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, reversing a Trump-era rollback that loosened fuel efficiency standards. A final rule issued Monday would raise mileage standards starting in the 2023 model year, reaching a projected industry-wide target of 40 miles per gallon by 2026. The new standard is 25% higher than a rule finalized by the Trump administration last year and 5% higher than a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency in August. “We are setting robust and rigorous standards that...

(AP) – CLAIM: President Joe Biden has called for a “driving tax” that is estimated to be 8 cents per mile. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The administration has not proposed that tax. A provision in Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill before Congress would establish a national study to assess how such a tax could be implemented. It would not actually enact that tax, nor it does not outline a rate of 8 cents per mile. THE FACTS: As members of Congress mull a bipartisan, $1 trillion infrastructure bill that was approved by the Senate in August, social media users are misrepresenting...

The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure accord would institute a multiyear "national motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot" program that, without future intervention from the White House, could potentially violate one of President Joe Biden's previously stated red lines. Top White House officials emphatically stated for months that paying for the infrastructure investments by indexing gas taxes to inflation or instituting new electric vehicle mileage fees were hard red lines for the president on the grounds that they would raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 per year. Yet, the new per-mile user fee pilot, outlined in section 13002 of...

On Sunday, the Senate released the final text of the so-called bipartisan (but really liberal) infrastructure bill — all 2,702 pages. According to Breitbart, the huge bill was written in secret for months outside the normal legislative process. Buried in the measure is a pilot program for a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee (MBUF) which is basically a long-term plan to make it too expensive to drive a car. One of the “fun” parts of the supposed bipartisan bill (fun for believers of the climate change hypothesis) can be found on page 511 of the measure, which you can...

In a major step against climate change, President Joe Biden is proposing a return to aggressive Obama-era vehicle mileage standards over five years, according to industry and government officials briefed on the plan. He's then aiming for even tougher anti-pollution rules after that to forcefully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nudge 40% of U.S. drivers into electric vehicles by decade's end. The proposed rules from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation reflect Biden's pledge to attack climate change but also balance concerns of the auto industry, which is urging a slower transition to zero-emission electric vehicles.

The IRS Business mileage for 2019, you could claim: 58 cents per business mile 20 cents per mile for medical miles & moving miles 14 cents per mile for charity drives Now with gas approaching +$4.00 per gal has the business per mile rate be adjusted for 2020? Tax season is almost here

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that to fund President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, a tax on mileage traveled looks promising. When asked about a mileage tax, Buttigieg said, “I think that shows a lot of promise. If we believe in that so-called user-pays principle, the idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive. The gas tax used to be the obvious way to do it; it’s not anymore. So, a so-called vehicle miles traveled tax or a mileage tax, whatever you want to...

Last week, Pete Buttigieg began confirmation hearings for his appointment as Transportation secretary. During the question-and-answer session we discovered why President Asterisk favors Mayor Pete for this position. It seems he has a radical new idea for how to fund highway maintenance and development, which the new administration favors. Funding for our highway infrastructure is currently supported via a fuel tax -- 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of Diesel. Mayor Pete’s proposal is to move to a tax on miles driven, rather than fuel consumed. It seems that the administration is concerned that drivers...

When Gina Rouse graduated as a nurse from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga in 2003, she intended to keep training like she did as a college runner. “I got the night shift in my first job as a nurse,” Rouse, who now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, told Runner’s World. “I was working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., and still trying to run twice a day before and after the shift. I definitely cut corners on sleep.” Rouse soon realized that her new schedule made it impossible to keep training the way she did in college. So throughout most of her...

The Trump administration is moving forward with a proposal to revoke part of California’s authority to set its own automobile gas mileage standards, a government official said Thursday, confronting a state that has repeatedly challenged the administration’s environmental rollbacks. The Environmental Protection Agency was preparing paperwork for the White House for the move, meant to help the administration set a single, less rigorous mileage standard enforceable nationwide, according to the official, who is familiar with the regulatory process and spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public. President Donald Trump has pushed for months to...

Citing safety, the Trump administration on Thursday proposed rolling back car-mileage standards, backing away from years of government efforts to cut Americans’ trips to the gas station and reduce unhealthy, climate-changing tailpipe emissions. If the proposed rule becomes final, it could roil the auto industry as it prepares for new model years and weaken one of the federal government’s chief weapons against climate change — regulating emissions from cars and other vehicles. The result, opponents say, will be dirtier air and more pollution-related illness and death. The proposal itself estimates it could cost tens of thousands of jobs — auto...

This policy brief focuses on the challenge of developing a viable, user-friendly, per-mile charging system to replace fuel taxes for the nation's major highways. In doing so, it outlines 10 reasons why per-mile tolling is a better highway user fee than fuel taxes. Reason 1: Per-mile tolling is a direct, rather than indirect, user fee. Motorists would pay for the amount of service they received; they would pay providers directly for providing that service; and they would know exactly how much they were paying and what they were getting for it. Reason 2: Per-mile tolling is a sustainable long-term funding...