Vehicle Mileage Tax

Mileage Tax Is Alive and Well and Living in Congress

April 28, 2009

The Infrastructurist - Just two months ago, the idea of taxing motorists on the basis of how many miles they drive seemed to be dead as a doornail. After being floated by the new transportation secretary as a way to fund our highways, his boss — the guy everyone calls “Mr President” — shot it down remorselessly.

Usually, when a Mr President shoots something down, it stays dead. [Insert own Dick Cheney hunting joke here.] But not in this case. Today, James Oberstar, the head of the House transportation committee, said he wants a mileage tax. And not only does he want one, he wants it to happen in as little as two years — not the decade or more that many advocates have been talking about.

The Associated Press reports:

Oberstar said he believes the technology exists to implement a mileage tax. He said he sees no point in waiting years for the results of pilot programs since such a tax system is inevitable as federal gasoline tax revenues decline.

“Why do we need a pilot program? Why don’t we just phase it in?” said Oberstar, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman. Oberstar is drafting a six-year transportation bill to fund highway and transit programs that is expected to total around a half trillion dollars.

Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., [...] said public acceptance, not technology, is the main obstacle to a mileage-based tax. [...]

Oberstar shrugged off that concern.

“I’m at a point of impatience with more studies,” Oberstar said. He suggested that Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the highways and transit subcommittee, set up a meeting of transportation experts and members of Congress to figure out how it could be done.

The tax would entail equipping vehicles with GPS technology to determine how many miles a car has been driven and whether on interstate highways or secondary roads. The devices would also calculate the amount of tax owed.

“At this point there are a lot of things that are under consideration and there is also a strong need to find revenue,” Oberstar spokesman Jim Berard said. “A vehicle miles-traveled tax is a logical complement, and perhaps a future replacement, for fuel taxes.”

Gas tax revenues — the primary source of federal funding for highway programs — have dropped dramatically in the last two years, first because gas prices were high and later because of the economic downturn. They are forecast to continue going down as drivers switch to fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles.This is probably something Secretary LaHood was well aware of.

In the video we posted yesterday, he seemed almost to stifle a smile when asked about the mileage tax. He said–wink, wink–that the question was entirely in the hands of Congress. Given that Oberstar is the guy responsible for writing the first draft of next transportation bill (which could be signed into law later this year), it seems quite likely that there will be provisions for a mileage tax in it.

NY Times: Mileage Tax Would ‘Track Where Motorists Have Been’

March 9, 2008

Prison Planet - A New York Times article about the different test studies being conducted as a precursor to the introduction of a CO2 or mileage tax admits that cars will contain tracking devices that will record where motorists have been.

Obama’s transportation secretary Ray LaHood recently caused controversy when he let slip that the administration was considering a “vehicles miles traveled” tax to replace the federal fuel tax. Press secretary Robert Gibbs hastily moved to offset concerns by claiming that such a tax “is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration.”

However, as the New York Times reported in its Sunday edition, a number of different large scale beta-testing programs are currently underway to trial that exact scheme. The largest is the $16.5 million federal Road User Study, under which thousands of volunteers in Austin, Tex.; Baltimore; Boise, Idaho; Raleigh and Durham, N.C.; San Diego; and the Quad Cities region of Iowa are driving cars equipped with tracking devices that catalogue their every movement.

For such a program to achieve its objective of taxing people by the mile, one would think that the only information the tracking device would need to measure is how many miles the vehicle has traveled. However, the true purpose of the technology is revealed when we learn that the system will also “record where motorists have been...”

Government Prepares the Public for Cradle to Grave Surveillance

CFR member and current DHS boss Janet Napolitano rolled out the idea of “enhanced driver’s licenses,” that is to say RFID national ID cards.

February 28, 2009

Infowars - Last week Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea of a mileage tax.

“The idea — which involves tracking drivers through Global Positioning System (GPS) units in their cars — is gaining support in some states as a way of making up for a shortfall in highway funding,” reports CNN.

It didn’t take long for Obama to reject the idea — at least for now. The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission report rolling out the mileage tax is designed not to foist this intrusive technology on the American people in the short term, but rather get them acclimated to the idea of being tracked and taxed...