Taxing miles over gas may be nigh

One of downsides of higher gasoline costs is that people started paying more attention to their driving habits in an effort to cut costs. That’s good news for the environment, but the side effect is less money for governments to build and/or repair streets, roads, bridges and similar infrastructure.

In order to make up that loss of revenue, some states and the federal government are considering taxing people by the number of miles they drive.

Oregon investigated the viability of a miles tax in 2006 and 2007. The state studied 260 vehicles in three categories: The control group paid the state gas tax of 24 cents per gallon. A second group paid 1.2 cents per mile, but no gas tax and the third group — rush hour vehicles — paid 10 cents per mile in congestion zones and about a half cent for regular travel but paid no gas tax.

The state found that 91 percent of the participants approved of the mileage tax and that the tax was administered with a100 percent accuracy. Plus, there was a 22 percent decline in driving at rush hour.

The faults were: too long to make the transaction at the pump and trouble identifying the user vehicle. They also found retrofitting the equipment from gas to miles was difficult and better technology is needed.

Environmentalists like the miles tax because they think it will lead to less driving. At the same time, they see a problem with it because the driver of a fuel efficient car will be taxed the same amount as a driver of a gas guzzler.

Toward that end there are some proposals bandied about that would tax truckers more than sedans. Or let truckers pay a flat annual fee based on their trip logs.

Tracking the miles is another problem.

Using a global positioning system would seem the most efficient, but do people really want the government to know where they go? That probably won’t fly. The honor system has been suggested. Unfortunately, that’s a laugher.

The last, and most likely, will be a device that calculates mileage and is sent to the pump via short-range radio.

The president is dead set against the mileage tax, but there are backers on both sides of the aisle who are lobbying hard to get it passed. The alteranative, they say, is rasing the national gas tax by 10 cents.

According to the Bureau of Transportation, Wyoming averages the most miles per driver in the nation at 18,281 while Washington, D.C., drivers only drive 6,230 miles per year. Alaskans average less than 9,000 miles. Surprisingly, car-happy Californians drive about the same as people here as do our neighbors to the south in Washington state.