BY BEN BARTEE, PJ Media
State governments have historically generated revenue to maintain roads, traffic lights, and the like by adding a tax at the pump. Owing to the federal government-prodded transition to electric vehicles (EVs) to combat something called “climate change,” states stand to lose out on this source of revenue as EVs obviously don’t require gasoline to operate.
Utah’s novel solution is to charge a “per-mile fee” for EVs with a government GPS tracker attached to monitor movement.
Utah roads are maintained using taxes from gasoline sales. As vehicles become more fuel efficient and the number of electric vehicles grows, the Utah Department of Transportation and Division of Motor Vehicles is changing to a per-mile fee as a way for drivers to pay their portion of roadway operations and maintenance…
You will pay 1.00 cents per mile, deducted from the prepaid wallet, up to the amount of the flat fee. Enrolling in Utah’s Road Usage Charge program gives you access to DriveSync® for Utah DOT an app that makes your driving safer and more productive through trip tracking and driving reports.
For a little added Orwellianism, the DriveSync® app also assigns a “driving score” based on how fast the slave citizen accelerates, brakes, corners turns, and drives. The app records bad driving behavior and shows it to the slave citizen on a digital map.
Oregon is instituting a similar policy, via KGW8 NBC:
ODOT created a website and program called OReGO where drivers can sign up to volunteer for a program where they pay a fee for every mile they drive on public roads. Currently it’s just under 2 cents per mile.
The program isn’t gaining much traction. About 700 people have signed up so far, either reporting their mileage to the state or by using GPS devices to track their travel.
The people driving hybrids are still paying for gas at the pump, so each quarter their account is balanced to credit the mileage fee against the gas tax, ensuring that they don’t end up paying both.
Michigan’s up next, via ABC News 12:
With electric vehicles on the rise, the Michigan Department of Transportation is exploring new options to replace the gas tax.
One potential avenue is a road usage charge system, which would require residents to place a GPS tracker in their vehicle to keep track of their mileage.
Similar systems are already in place in Utah and Oregon. Utah charges drivers 1 cent per mile, while Oregon charges drivers 1.9 cents per mile.
The technocrats love nothing more than killing two (or three) birds with one stone. In this case, said birds are: getting rid of gas-powered cars, inventing for themselves a brand-new revenue generation scheme, and instituting even more tracking power to make sure the peasants behave themselves.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of Citizens Journal
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