Solutions to Fixing the Gas Tax Crisis

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

 
According to a Wall Street Journal publication, the gas tax in the United States is not capable of paying for the country’s transportation system any longer. Despite increasing vehicle ownership due to population growth, gas demand won’t increase enough to generate adequate revenue.

oil tax
Image: oil barrel on $100 via Shutterstock

According to the CBO, gasoline tax revenue is projected to fall by $57 million over the next 11 years due to a scheduled federal fuel economy standard increase.

“The idea that gets the broadest support is to take the user-fee piece of the gas tax to its logical conclusion: tax motorists on the miles they drive. Many economists argue that such a tax—known as a vehicle-miles-traveled tax or mileage-based user fee—is the fairest, most sustainable replacement for the gasoline tax. The problem is how to track the miles.” And then there is the cost of collecting the fee.
 
Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!
 
“Mileage-based fees can also be adjusted to discourage motorists from driving on the most congested roads or at the busiest times of day. Mileage-based fees ‘let us kill two birds with one stone,’ says Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. ‘Short of privatization, it really is the free-market solution.'”

Source: Planetizen


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Nicholas Brown

Has a keen interest in physics-intensive topics such as electricity generation, refrigeration and air conditioning technology, energy storage, and geography. His website is: Kompulsa.com.

Nicholas Brown has 594 posts and counting. See all posts by Nicholas Brown