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EDITORIAL: Electric vehicle fee for road use is only fair — but is there a better path forward?

3 min read

Changing technology doesn’t just affect business or industry.

It also affects government, sometimes in how it regulates and sometimes in how it taxes.

We are seeing that now with electric vehicles.

In Pennsylvania, roads and bridges are funded, in large part, through a gas tax. The Keystone State has some of the highest fuel taxes in the country at 61.1 cents per gallon. Only California, at 88 cents, is higher.

It’s the kind of painful dig at the pump that has caused a lot of grumbling as prices have climbed higher and higher amid inflation as well as supply issues in recent years.

At the same time, the increasing popularity of electric vehicles can make people wonder why the taxes on gasoline are driving projects despite more electric vehicles using the roads.

PennDOT shows a steadily growing number of fully electric and hybrid vehicles in the state since 2015. In 2015, there were 2,773 fully electric vehicles and 24,053 hybrids registered in Pennsylvania. In 2022, there were 43,785 fully electric vehicles and 100,717 hybrids registered with the state.

That’s an increase from .26% of the more than 10 million vehicles registered in the state to about 1.44%. The total number of registered vehicles has fallen by about 3,000 over that period.

It isn’t a sharp increase in electrical vehicles, but it’s an upward trend that doesn’t show signs of stopping. The state is encouraging it. Gas stations are putting in electric fueling stations, as are other locations like parks and parking lots. Electric vehicles are here to stay.

So what about paying their way for using the roads? The state Senate Transportation Committee wants to address that, according to a Pennlive.com article.

“It’s time for electric vehicles to pay a portion of (infrastructure projects) as well,” said committee Chairman Wayne Langerholc, R-Cambria County. “Each day that we wait to tackle this issue it’s a day that we leave money on the table.”

He estimates the fee would generate approximately $20 million annually, although if the number of electric vehicles continues to grow at the same rate, it would only become a larger piece of the state’s transportation pie.

On Wednesday, the committee approved a bill to charge non-commercial passenger electric vehicles an annual fee of $290. It passed by a broadly bipartisan vote of 13 to 1 and now heads to the full Senate. A similar bill is being considered in the House of Representatives.

State Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny County, was the lone vote against the Senate bill, claiming she thought it did not “strike a balance” on making electric vehicle owners pay their fair share while keeping the vehicles affordable.

The fee boils down to $24.17 per month. Gas vehicle drivers pay that much if they use 64 gallons – about three tanks – of gas per month. That’s comparable.

But maybe Williams is right. Maybe there is a better way, a more creative approach that would stop leaning so heavily on taxation of both gas and electric users.

If so, it’s incumbent on lawmakers like her who want to find those paths to fuel more outside-the-tax conversation.

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