ACTION ALERT: EV registration fee being raised from $75 to $200.

[Jukka Kukkonen]

Hi,

We need to act. Anjali Bains and Nick Haeg from Fresh Energy have provided good instructions on how we can have an impact on this. Let’s do it.

 

Thanks,

 

Jukka

 

Dear MN EV Owners,

 

There is an opportunity to have your voices heard on the proposed increase to the EV registration fee being contemplated in the House and Senate. On Monday April 21 @ 4 pm, the House Taxes committees will hear House File 2438, which includes legislation that would increase the EV registration fee from its current $75 to a whopping $200.

 

We have heard this fee is getting bipartisan traction, so your voices are critical to changing the narrative!

 

You may sign-up to testify in person by sending an email with your  full name, organization (if applicable) and preferred title to the DFL Committee Administrator Patrick....@house.mn.gov and the DFL CLA Shamat...@house.mn.gov by 10:00 AM on Monday, April 21st. Testimony must not exceed 2 min.

- Meeting is in the Capitol, Room 120

- Full meeting details here, including committee members: https://www.house.mn.gov/committees/home/94022

 

Can’t make it in-person? No fears, you can also send ‘written testimony’ (i.e. a letter) to Patrick....@house.mn.gov and  Shamat...@house.mn.gov by 10:00 AM on Monday, April 21^st as well.

There may be other opportunities to testify or submit written letters in the coming weeks; be on the look-out for more emails on upcoming hearings or opportunities to submit letters

 

TIPS ON TESTIFYING IN PERSON

- Plan for 90 seconds, to be safe. This allows a buffer for going slower, and avoiding being cut-off, which can happen if there are a lot of testifiers  

- Focus on your story. There will be policy advocates there (e.g. Fresh Energy) to paint a bigger picture, so don’t feel like you have to hit all the talking points below. Share your own frustrations and concerns around the fee, affordability, and climate change, and any other reasons that ring true for you

- Share your name, and any attributes you think relevant. E.g. “My name is Tom, and I have been an EV driver for X years.”

- Arrive early to give yourself time to park and get to the Capitol. Parking is available for free in the unused Sears parking lot here, but it will take 10 minutes to get to the Capitol.

- See attached map of the parking lot, and other available parking. The Capitol is also transit-accessible via the Green Line

- Give yourself plenty of time. Aim to arrive in the meeting room 5 min before 4 pm

- When you get to the room, find any seat and sit. You’ll be called up to the podium to speak when it is your turn. You may leave after if you’d like or stick around.

 

TALKING POINTS ON EV FEE INCREASE

As Nick mentioned at the MN EV Owners meeting, this EV fee increase is unnecessary for several reasons:

1. EVs already pay their ‘fair share’ into roadway funding, though higher tab fees and motor vehicle sales tax

2. The primary sources of funding lags for roadway funding is from inflation, increasing needs of maintain our physical infrastructure, and declining gas tax revenues from increasing efficiency of gasoline vehicles. Raising fees on EVs does not solve the underlying issue.

- EVs make up <1% of passenger vehicles in Minnesota. While their growth will cause further declines in gas tax revenues down the road, it is not the main cause now.

- If you’re curious, you can read more here: Revenue Options to Address the Highway User Tax Distribution Funding Gap (MnDOT, Nov 2024)

3. Instead of pinning the blame on EVs, Minnesota needs to follow the recommendations of MnDOT and find a comprehensive, multi-faceted solution for funding all transportation infrastructure needs, including highways, while also achieving our state’s climate goals, regardless of the fuel or vehicle type

- Transportation sector is the #1 source of climate emissions in MN, and we are sorely behind on addressing them. Increasing costs on EVs at this time is not the right move.

4. The timing of this fee increase when federal incentives are at risk of disappearing and consumer costs are rising is anti-thetical to meeting the state’s climate goals. To do so, we need the state to stay committed to making EVs affordable to own and operate in the near-term

 

Have questions? Feel free to email Nick Haeg (ha...@fresh-energy.org) and Anjali Bains (ba...@fresh-energy.org) and they’ll do their best to respond; however, they won’t be responsive on the weekend and will be preparing Monday for the hearing themselves as well, so responsiveness may be limited.

 

Final note:  The registration fee increase is the main EV fee increase we have seen make it to the end stages. However, there have been ideas floating on putting a 5 cents tax on public fast charging, or creating a distance-based user fee system. While it shouldn’t come up on Monday, in case it does, some background on those proposals:

- The public charging tax is regressive for EV users who don’t have access to at-home charging.

- Both the public charging tax and the distance-based user fee systems are both administratively costly as well and would eat significantly into the funds they are purporting to raise.

- Distance-based fees may be where future roadway funding goes, instead of the gas tax; in fact, UMN is doing a study on distance-based user fees for all vehicle types, so we recommend letting that study play out. We also would want any distance-based system to apply to all vehicles, not just EVs.  

 

Drive Electric MN policy text with useful links to supporting studies:
Multiple factors contribute to Minnesota’s current and projected highway funding gap. According to an analysis by Alliance for Transportation Electrification, current revenue losses are driven primarily by improving gas vehicle fuel economy. The growth in EVs, which today account for less than 1 percent of vehicles on the roads in Minnesota, is not currently contributing significantly to that funding gap. In fact, analyses by the Great Plains Institute and the Minnesota Department of Transportation have shown that Minnesota EV drivers currently contribute more to the Highway User Tax Distribution Fund than drivers of equivalent gas cars through the existing $75 annual EV tax plus higher registration and motor vehicle taxes. Increasing the annual EV fee would discourage EV adoption without addressing the main cause of declining revenues. Instead, Drive Electric Minnesota supports comprehensive funding solutions that treat drivers of EVs and conventional vehicles fairly.

 

[Jukka Kukkonen]

Thank you to everyone who sent emails to House Tax Committee members before the meeting on Monday and for those who showed up to testify. There were 41 letters of written testimony opposing the increase of the EV registration fee and eight people testified in person against it, four of those were our members.

Unfortunately, this was not enough to stop this process, but House bill HF 2438 is moving towards conference committee and Senate bill SF2082 has the same language increasing the registration fee for EVs from $75 a year to $200 a year. The challenge is that most legislators think that this is OK, that EVs are not paying their fair share, which is totally incorrect. All studies show that EV owners are already paying more than ICE vehicles, so there is no base for this hike.

Our best course of action now is to reach out to our own legislators to tell them why they should oppose this. Fresh Energy has a blog post about this and they also set up a Take Action page https://fresh-energy.org/stop-the-ev-fee-hike that provides an easy way for you to send a personalized message to the Governor, your State Senator and your State Representative.  I will be doing it right now.

Thanks,

Jukka

Jukka Kukkonen

MN EV Owners coordinator