Recommendation to Portland City Council

[George Rheault]

David Zipper on Twitter: "Welp, this article has had ~3x the engagement of anything else I've written. State/local officials take note: Plenty of people are ready to push back against steroidal SUV/truck growth, even if @NHTSAgov and Congress keep ignoring it." / Twitter

Remember when LePage was all upset over eco-friendly cars evading the gas tax and thus not paying their "fair share" of road maintenance upkeep?

Maine to hit hybrids, electric cars with fees higher than gas tax? (greencarreports.info)

[John Brooking]

I wonder what the fiscal implications would be if we just instituted a higher registration fee for all cars and eliminated the gas tax. Although there does seem to be a certain fairness to the gas tax in that people pay in proportion to how much they drive (and therefore emit carbon emissions). But I don't know how hybrid and EV owners would be charged a similar tax for their electricity. I'm sure someone who knows more about tax policy than I do would have some thoughts.

I guess it also depends on if we view the purpose of the gas tax as solely road maintenance funding, or also as a disincentive to drive fully carbon-fueled vehicles.

John Brooking

Cyclist, Cycling Educator, Technologist

http://cyclingsavvy.org

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[Scsmedia]

The first thing I would see in this is more cars being registered out of state.

Maine's gas tax is in the middle of all gas taxes by state at $ .30 per gallon.  I cannot find a breakdown on the fuel tax (Aeronautical fuel tax was listed separately in the report I finally found) on the state's website, but the total budgeted for the fiscal year is $224,703,184 million. The state has 1,330,399 registered vehicles but they are in diverse categories so not all registrants pay the same amount.

https://www.maine.gov/sos/bmv/stats/Reg21.pdf

Steven Scharf

207-415-4662

SCSM...@aol.com

PS: in my research, I found out that The District of Columbia has the highest Jet Fuel tax.  They have no airports in DC.

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