Trucking Group Opposes Vehicle Miles Tax (The Journal of Commerce)
William B. Cassidy | Apr 21, 2010 4:10PM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online – News Story
ATA says fuel taxes still best way to pay for highways, as interest in VMT grows
A Vehicle Miles Traveled tax may be gaining mileage on Capitol Hill, but the nation’s truckers want an alternate route. Replacing the federal fuel tax with a VMT would be too costly, a top American Trucking Associations official said yesterday.
Such a tax would be difficult to implement and to comply with, said Bob Pitcher, an ATA vice president. “Imagine the bureaucracy needed to oversee and collect VMT fees from millions of highway users,” he said at a symposium on mileage-based user fees.
A recent poll suggests a majority of Americans agree. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed by HTNB, an infrastructure contractor, said the U.S. should not try to reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions through a vehicle miles traveled tax.
The idea of a VMT is surfacing more often as states and the federal government look for new ways to fund highway building and repair. Fuel tax revenues — the main source of highway funding — are forecast to decline as more fuel-efficient cars take the road.
Congress hasn’t raised the federal tax on gasoline and diesel since 1993, but construction and materials costs have risen since then, making it more difficult for the federal government and states to stretch the tax money deposited in the Highway Trust Fund.
The solution ATA favors is to raise the federal fuels tax, which is now 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel. But the White House opposes increasing the tax, and there’s little support for a gas tax hike in Congress.
Some members of Congress see the VMT as a plausible alternative — especially when it’s backed by new technology. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., wants to include language in the next surface transportation bill to extend an Oregon VMT test nationwide.
“This is something we could flip the switch on before the next reauthorization cycle,” he said. “We need to get out of the downward death spiral in transportation funding.”
The University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center is testing a VMT in a $16.5 million federally funded research project. Nevada just launched a three-year VMT study. Most authorities on the subject believe a transition to a VMT would take several years.
The trucking industry, however, compares the VMT to weight-distance taxes that more than 20 states have repealed as outdated and ineffective, Pitcher said. All but four states rely on a combination of truck registration fees and fuel taxes for road money.
That system should stay in place even if a VMT is introduced for car drivers, according to ATA. Diesel use is likely to remain more stable than gasoline consumption, as there are fewer readily available alternatives to diesel for over-the-road trucks, ATA says.
Keeping the fuel tax in place for truckers makes sense even if a VMT is introduced for car drivers, says ATA, because over-the-highway truckers don’t have a readily available alternative to diesel, and probably won’t for a long time to come. That will keep diesel consumption relatively stable, while gasoline use declines, the association said.
Contact William B. Cassidy at [email protected].
