Widespread push toward electric vehicles has left state governments seeking new ways to pilfer motorists of their hard earned dollars without curbing the lasting goals of societal engineering.
A cursory glance at the bluest states in the union is all that it takes to see that leftist micromanagement seeks to reinforce behavior, regulate the markets and restrict consumers into complying with their desired outcome. However, the “E” of ESG scoring has hampered tax revenue generation from gasoline sales, according to the Associated Press, as they reported on states seeking alternative ways to bilk drivers in the name of maintaining infrastructure.
Currently, there are only three states that have implemented a road usage charge program, taxing motorists per mile, with another expected to begin its own revenue collection scheme. Those states — Oregon, Utah, Virginia and soon Hawaii — have experimented with devices installed in vehicles that capture mileage data, with the Beaver State having done so since 2015.
The federal government is also looking to get in on the action as $125 million from President Joe Biden’s Nov. 2021 infrastructure package is geared toward piloting such a program.
Meanwhile, Colorado introduced a 27 cent tax on online retail home deliveries like Amazon meant to bridge the gap in lost revenue from gasoline sales which Boston-based engineering company CDM Smith estimated could reach $67 billion by 2050 simply through fuel efficiency.
Analysts voiced their concern over the fine-line that needed to be tread to maintain the environmentalist push toward electric vehicles without inadvertently creating a benefit for gasoline-powered vehicles.
“To switch over to a system that makes it cheaper to drive a gas guzzler and more expensive to drive a Prius seems both symbolically problematic and to be sending, in the most literal way, the wrong economic incentives to people,” National Transportation Finance Center director Asha Weinstein Agrawal of San Jose State University’s Mineta Transportation Institute said as government support for mileage-based fees has grown.
Dough Shinkle, transportation program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, seemed to echo that caution as he told the AP, “The impetus at this point is less about collecting revenue than about establishing these systems, working out the kinks, getting public comfortable with it, expanding awareness around it.”
Just last month, House Republicans submitted a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in opposition to their proposed emission standards for vehicles targeting model year 2027. The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated electric car sales climbed from 0.1 of the total in 2011 to 4.6 percent in 2021 and the S&P Global Mobility forecast projected that number could rise to 40 percent by 2030.
“The projected statistics are a far cry from the current EV market share of 4.5 percent,” the 151 GOP representatives wrote, “making these standards a deliberate market manipulation to prop up EVs. Furthermore, a rapid shift towards EVs would benefit only the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as China has a stranglehold on the critical minerals supply chain and manufacturing of EV batteries. For example, China currently controls 50 to 70 percent of global lithium and cobalt refining that are necessary for EV batteries.”
House Republicans push back against Biden’s electric vehicle tyrannyhttps://t.co/Lv1rJ1kUQd
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) May 23, 2023
Of course, that growth is heavily influenced by regulations as some states have moved to outlaw the sale of gas-powered vehicles despite the current inability of the energy grid to sustain the push.
Recognizing the delicate balance between what consumers will tolerate and what they will consider a benefit, Citizens Research Council of Michigan transportation analyst Eric Paul Dennis said, “There’s no program design that I have seen that I think can be implemented at scale in a way that is publicly acceptable.”
“That doesn’t mean that a program can’t be designed to do so, but I feel like if you can’t even conceive of the program architecture that seems like something that would work, you probably shouldn’t put too much faith in it,” he added.
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Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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