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Officials Seek Way to Fill a Gas Tax Gap
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Mar 08, 2009 07:47pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Sunday, March 8, 2009 01:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By STEVE FRIESS
Published: March 7, 2009
LAS VEGAS — With gas tax revenue declining and fuel efficiency the holy grail of car manufacturers, officials across the country are testing systems that could move Americans from paying a per-gallon tax at the pump to some form of fee based on road usage.
The challenges with such a shift are immense. Economists are not sure the idea will be practical, and privacy advocates oppose the notion of governments monitoring motorists’ driving habits. But millions of dollars are being spent on experiments with ways to collect such fees, and the idea seems to be gaining support in some quarters.
“We’re anticipating that we may get to the day when cars on the road don’t ever even go to a fueling station,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, which held hearings on the matter last summer. “If we’re going to continue to have a highway network and fix the 150,000 bridges we have that are in disrepair, we’re going to need new sources of revenue.”
Gas tax revenue has been flat or declining across the nation, partly because people are driving less and partly because their cars require less fuel. The Department of Transportation took in about $71 million less in gas taxes in the 2008 fiscal year than in 2007, and Americans drove 12.9 billion fewer miles in November 2008 than November 2007, the most recent figures available.
Those declines have depleted the Federal Highway Trust Fund, authorized by Congress in 2005 to pay for road construction and maintenance through the end of this year. The federal tax rate of 18.4 cents per gallon of gas has not changed since 1993; 24 states and the District of Columbia have not changed their per-gallon tax rates since 1998. |
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