Showing great “concern” about finding paths to pay for necessary infrastructure investments, Senator Susan Collins forcefully rejects revisiting the Republican’s fiscally damaging 2017 Corporate Subsidy Program and is offering up seemingly ‘moderate’ options like placing a fee on electric vehicles so that they will “pay their fair share” since, right now, “they are abusing our roads and bridges”. Putting aside the truth that fossil fuel (diesel and gas) vehicles are abusing our lungs and planet with their emissions while not paying even a smidgin of their “fair share” of the costs from their pollution, there is a basic common sense calculation here. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that a $100 per EV fee in 2019 would have brought in a total of $150 million in fees (putting aside the costs of establishing the program and collecting the fees) which is barely 1/10th of 1 percent of the cost of even the Republican infrastructure proposal. One might suggest, looking at that, ‘Get real, Susan Collins’. The diversion to such a footnote-like financial element is a typical game played by not-serious policy players. Another calculation makes the ‘lack of seriousness’ even clearer.
Putting aside the counter-productive nature of putting extra fees (at this time) on electric vehicles (which is a market which we are seeking to spark for economic, environmental, human health, and other reasons), there is an equity and fairness issue in terms of a potential fee. Consider the numbers
- $100 per vehicle re electric vehicle (EV)
- Gas tax 18.4 cents/gallon
- Requires 543.5 gallons for tax to equal $100
- Appropriate for comparison to “average EV” might be a 40 mpg car
- The internal combustion engine (ICE) version of the average EV would have to drive 21,740 miles for its mileage to use 543.5 gallons.
- The average US vehicle is somewhere ballpark 13,500 miles/year.
Thus, the EV driver would have to put in roughly 60% more than the ‘average’ vehicle (even as EVs are driven fewer miles than average) to even be ‘break even’ in this calculation of such a punitive and counter-productive (except for fossil-foolish interests) fee.
NOTE: This sort of abusive EV fee has long been a Republican Party staple in attacking paths to a clean energy future. Nearly a decade ago, in Virginia, Republican Gov Bob McDonnell proposed a similar $100 electric (and hybrid) car fee.