As drivers replace their gas-guzzlers with more efficient vehicles, drive less and/or start using alternate transportation, gas tax revenues are dropping. The Seattle Post-Intelligence reports that Washington state is responding to this environmentally beneficial trend with an annual tax tied to a vehicle's EPA-rated fuel economy. Under Senate Bill 6923, a Prius owner will pay $60 per year, while an H3 owner would be dunned three times that amount. Bill sponsor State senator Ed Murray denies the measure is a greenwashed cash grab. "The (governor's) climate advisory team said that the biggest global warming problem in this state is actually from transportation." How a state can have a "global" warming problem isn't quite clear, but Ed claims Washington's industry is "fairly clean." The real problem? "The number of automobiles." Lower-income drivers will be hardest hit by the new rules, as they are least capable of switching to newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Estimates show they'll have to pay an average of $113 per year.
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So if this passes, then Washington will have a cooler climate relative to the rest of the world, right? We wouldn’t want those glaciers on Mt Rainer to suddenly and catastrophically melt.
A flat fuel tax might be a bit more objective (but perhaps less lucrative) way to fairly collect revenue.
That should be, “Seattle Post-Intelligencer.”
“Commercial drivers would be exempt from the legislation.”
Does that mean that Joe Small-Business Owner can claim his car as a business vehicle, thus escaping the tax?
What about those of us who own several cars? I own a fuel friendly car (and 250cc motorcycle) to comute to work. and i have a thirsty v8 for nice weekends? Even a usage tax would be bad… but a flat ownership tax is very very socialist friendly.
From the Seattle Pre-Intelligence Article:
Murray proposed his bill as Gov. Chris Gregoire’s Climate Advisory Team released its final recommendations for cutting greenhouse gases, including:
Charging road tolls, increasing parking costs and basing auto insurance rates on miles driven.
Increasing parking costs?! I don’t know how many people on this board have been to Seattle, but in my one trip there, the parking situation in Seattle made SanFrancisco look car friendly.
“Basing auto insurance rates on miles driven.” Does this mean that private insurance companies are not allowed in Washington? How else would the state determine how insurance rates are determined unless they set them instead of a private insurer.
By the way, when I was in Washington 3 years ago, Rainier’s glaciers were growing and had been growing for the past 30 years. They still hadn’t made it back to their recorded height in the 1880’s, but they weren’t shrinking.
The article isn’t clear about whether this is a tax on all vehicles or new ones only.
Also, they claim this is to supplement declining gas tax revenues. But high MPG vehicles get taxed at a lower rate so they’re replacing one declining revenue source with another. This is nothing more than a greenwashing cash grab.
Lumbergh,
As of 2004, the glaciers on Mt Ranier were shrinking from the start of their studies in 1914.
Reference:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/mora/ncrd/glacier/Res00.html
Not sure where you got they were growing instead of retreating.
You have to ask yourself “how much difference is this going to make?” Since the difference in registration costs is $10/mo between the top and bottom brackets, I don’t see how this will move many people into different cars and achieve any “environmental” goals. And to the extent that it actually does prod people into buying more efficient cars, it can only erode the tax base further on the gas-tax side, as people start to burn less fuel for the same commute.
It’s a cash grab. Fair enough. States need money, so they tax it out of us. My biggest complaint (shared, it would seem, by a lot of people here) is that this is a sneaky, regressive and disingenuous way to extract money from the people. Need more money for the state budget? Raise road revenues through some mechanism that most accurately targets usage and impact on the roads, freeing up general tax revenue for other purposes. Gas taxes and certain highway tolls are the way to pay for things most rationally — people can see them, pay them, avoid them by changing their habits, or vote against them.
Washington State benefits from the fact that a huge proportion of their electricity comes from hydroelectric sources. That’s what allows them to say that their industry is clean and cars are their biggest contribution to greenhouse gases. But that statement is also a form of smoke-blowing and arbitrary line drawing. To the extent they consume more of their own “clean” hydropower, they export less of it to California, which then has to make up for the shortfall by… burning natural gas. Since their industry exists and consumes power, it forces other industries to emit carbon — so indirectly, it’s also “responsible” for carbon emission, in the sense that “but for” the electricity consumption of those factories in Seattle, California would not have to burn (as much) natural gas.
As a Washington state resident I can tell you there is a bit more to this story. Up until about ten years ago our license plate tabs carried an annual excise tax based on the value of the vehicle. I think the average cost of tabs per machine was around $750. A citizen initiative, written by a well-known public gadfly made it onto the ballot and forced the state government to drop the annual excise tax and replace it with a flat-fee of $30.
Washington has been scrambling to find another source of revenue ever since and grasping onto all manner of goofy fees and taxes. Car tabs now vary widely by county but have crept up by 2x or so in the last five years. Our gas taxes have risen, the State Ferry fleet has raised their rates through the roof, and every other month Olympia cooks up another one of these looney ways of sucking our wallets a bit more.
This one just has a new twist. I like that term though… “Greenwashing”… very appropriate.
–chuck goolsbee
arlington, wa, usa
http://chuck.goolsbee.org
“How a state can have a “global” warming problem isn’t quite clear…”
Now don’t expect rational thought from people in a panic.
Just tax gas. That would seem more equitable, because the mpg rating of a vehicle does not necessarily correlate with how much it is actually driven. It seems like this law might punish people who say keep a Wrangler for “weekend fun” only.
“How a state can have a “global” warming problem isn’t quite clear…”
Think Globally, Tax Locally!
They already do this in Germany…
Just tax gas.
What’s really the difference then between a gasoline tax and a MPG tax? Drivers of less efficient cars will shell out more than drivers of more efficient car and in theory the result is the same right?
If you think this MPG tax is a greenwashed cash grab, then so is any form of taxation that targets low mpg vehicles.
quasimondo-
The difference between a gas tax and a vehicle MPG tax is rather significant. If I drive my 7.1 L V8 only on sunny summer days (and there are approx. 3 per year here in Seattle), I have not made much of an impact with my emissions or gas consumption, but I still pay a high rate of tax. Any of us with secondary “fun cars” will sympathize with this problem.
The flip side is the lower MPG car driven 30-50k miles/year with a much larger gas and emissions footprint that is left unaffected. I’d much rather the price of gas be taxed at a flat rate (making driving, with all its ills, more expensive) than have some legislator impose a “sin tax” on my weekend joyride.
Yeah, Washington’s pretty adept at this sort of thing. If the push to conserve water is effective, guess what? Water rates go up. Electric consumption is reduced? Rates go up.
Now gas tax revenue is falling. What should we do? Find another way into the car driver’s pocket but disguise it as a green initiative. Yeah, that’s it.
Hey Chuck, no need for your state to “scramble for another source of revenue.” Washington has no state income tax, right? Sock it to the “rich” (defined as people with a job)! The Seattle Post-Intelligence (“post” as in “after one’s wits are lost) should dearly love that idea.
Washington’s industry is green? Don’t they cut down a lot of trees there?
Donal, you can certainly expect “Joe Small-Business Owner [to] claim his car as a business vehicle, thus escaping the tax.” Back in the 30’s Oklahoma created three registration categories: farm trucks (flat fee), commercial vehicles (fee based on weight) and ordinary cars (fee based on value). Heavy-duty trucks paid the most; car tags cost only a little more than farm trucks. But after decades of inflation, car tags were far more than a farm truck fee. Also, since cars weigh much less than big trucks, the race was on to call your LeSabre or Explorer a “commercial vehicle” on the slightest pretext. (A few people turned themselves into “farmers” but that was harder to document.) At a kiddie soccer meet I saw a commercial vehicle tag on an architect’s Volvo wagon; he explained he sometimes carried blueprints when he drove it. Eventually there was a semi-reform of registration fees, and the next year the number of commercial vehicles fell by tens of thousands. It was like an overnight Great Depression, though it seemed like the Yellow Pages were as thick as ever.
As a new WA resident, I’m just happy that there’s no state income tax. Coming from NJ and CA, that’s a welcome change.
As for this POS bill..
Taxing gas would make a lot more sense, but that would be wildly unpopular and the politician would be known as the man who raised gas prices. We can’t have that. And so stupid MPG taxes are born.
The biggest pollution problem in this state is the traffic congestion. I-5 is ridiculous. It’s worse than New York City traffic (which is actually not bad at all) and San Fran, too. I once had to drive 25 miles south to Seattle at 6am, and it took me 2 hours. All those cars sitting in traffic polluting the air should be fixed. This tax is garbage.
It is unlikely that they would tax the gas. As I understand it, the state of Washington prides itself on being a vacation spot/tourism state such as it is. When tourists show up (predominately by a vehicle that uses an internal cumbustion engine) and finds that gas is much more expensive in the state then the revenue from tourism drops which is a double-whammy in the revenue area. Where taxing the registration /or license fee only punishes the residents of the state and leaves the tourists and the associated revenue streams alone.
Taxing license/registration is an easy tax to administer by having a much lower overhead than establishing toll roads and the expense and administration associated with it. All in all while it may be punishing those who live there with toys it doesn’t have the potential to impact other revenue streams like taxing gas or having toll roads.
I’m sure this will catch on in other states as revenue from gas starts to dwindle.
Orian :
February 7th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Lumbergh,
As of 2004, the glaciers on Mt Ranier were shrinking from the start of their studies in 1914.
Reference:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/mora/ncrd/glacier/Res00.html
Not sure where you got they were growing instead of retreating.
It was from a roadside pull-out at one of the glaciers (sorry, I can’t remember which one) that showed a photo of the glacier from sometime in the 1880’s with terminus locations superimposed at various years since then. The terminus was much further down 100+ years ago, but reached its minimum in the 50’s or 60’s. I will see if they have a copy of the graphic at the Park’s website or if I can get the info on line from one of the studies cited in your link.
When tourists show up (predominately by a vehicle that uses an internal cumbustion engine) and finds that gas is much more expensive in the state then the revenue from tourism drops which is a double-whammy in the revenue area.
One of funniest posts ever. So, if you’re tourist and you come to Washington State for a week or even a weekend of fun, your gas cost will be a tiny little insignificant fraction of what you spend on your trip, and the gas tax will be just a fraction of the gas cost. Consider the cost of hotels, fine restaurants, ski lift tickets and whatnot. Tourists already get ripped off everywhere enough that they don’t care if the have to pay 20c more per gallon.
Yet again, more evidence of the upcoming battle between the greens and the socialists in the Democratic party. The two ideologies are inherently incompatible.
Laugh at the thought that tourism is impacted by higher taxes but, many state leaders consider that when imposing legislation pertaining to taxes on different types of fuel.
Additionally, the inreased fuel tax also impacts not only cars but, buses, trains, aircraft etc etc. thereby incerases costs of all goods and services which is an impact to the state’s economy. Think of the bigger picture.
Washington is all kinds of screwy. The Seattle area still doesn’t have proper public transportation, so the traffic is outrageous. I’ll drive from San Jose to San Francisco for an evening, but from Olympia to downtown Seattle? Not since 1996! Yes, it’s 15 more miles from Oly to Latteland, but it takes an hour more due to traffic. Twenty years ago, it was an hour drive. No longer.
Why doesn’t Washington raise the sales tax some more? It was worth doing to purchase a few stadiums for the corporate sports teams, no revenue going back to the taxpayer.
Ah, Oregon. Cheaper gas than WA and you don’t even have to get out of the car.
timoted,
Presently, the commercial carriers pay no sales tax on fuel. In fact, they pay no taxes whatsoever related to fuel use. They are charged fees at airports, they are charged use taxes by the states, they also pay the regular corporate taxes. I am unaware of any state taxes they pay on fuel, but I do know that they run calculations in order to spend the least amount on fuel they can. So, if a state tried to grab money there, they would start selling a LOT less Jet A. OTOH, private and corporate aircraft pay gas taxes, and having just raised them about 20%, the Bush Admin. is once again asking to triple them.
When in the heck is everyone going to wake the h***up, and call it what it is, just another way for these rotten corrupt losy stinken crooked politicians to suck the last worthless penny out of our wornout jeans. I’m driving a vehicle that uses to much gas, NOT by choose but because other rotten polictians have passed so many other taxes that I can no longer afford to upgrade to a more fuel efficent auto, I have alright stop 90 percent of our driving, we no longer take vacations or leave our homes because the price of gas is so high and Washington State is one of the highest in taxing gas. This is just a way for them to get the money back they lost when they were forced into following the Voters of Washington wishes. They have chipped away at our vote over and over again trying to get around that flat 30.00 licence fee, they have lost sleep over looking for ways to get that and more back and this stinks to high heaven as another way. MAD, your damn right, we need that brave soul back that fought for the flat tax on car licences again.
As a Washington State Citizen I am appalled. I love my Jeep Wrangler and most of the driving I do is in relation to the VOLUNTEER work I do with the Sheriff’s department in relation to Search and Rescue activities.
This would really hurt Search and Rescue activities as many volunteers have SUV / 4×4 vehicles because of the amount of special equipment that we are required to carry and the remote locations that we often have to travel to where roads may or may not be available. Most Search and Rescue organizations do not get paid or reimbursed for the fuel, uniforms, and other special equipment we have to purchase. The organization is an auxiliary to the County Sheriff’s and the Department of Emergency management. We get called on out on regular basis to find lost children, Alzheimer patients, hikers/backpackers, hunters, and many other outdoor enthusiasts.
The Fuel in Washington State has an excise tax of 36 cents per gallon. Combined with the Federal excise tax, Washington State citizens pay 54.4 cents per gallon in excise taxes.