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Nissan Leaf electric vehicles sit on display at an auto dealership in Roswell, Georgia, in February.
(AP Photo/David Goldman)
This year's big transportation story in Salem is, of course, the funding package that may (but probably won't) happen. That isn't the only transportation story, though. Another is House Bill 2271, which would require electric vehicles, whose owners don't pay fuel taxes, to pay a road-usage fee instead.
The story here is that the bill is going nowhere, much like an electric car with no outlet nearby. And even as it gathers dust, the Oregon Department of Transportation is preparing to birth a program that demonstrates just how crucial HB2271, or something like it, will soon become.
The program, dubbed OReGO, will allow up to 5,000 volunteers to pay a per-mile fee in the place of Oregon's motor-fuels tax, which is 30 cents per gallon. OReGO, which builds upon an earlier pilot program, is the latest step in the state's effort to address a road-funding dilemma created by the emergence of super-efficient cars: They contribute little revenue per mile traveled, especially those that run predominantly or exclusively on electricity.
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The problem the state's attempting to fix is real, and it will become more acute as highly efficient cars proliferate. Problem is, the usage-charge model to which the state is appropriately committed isn't something that can capture its target fleet through subtle expansion. At some point, lawmakers will have to launch an unpopular revenue raid by adopting a mandate like HB2271.
Consider OReGO's details. Participating vehicles will be assessed a charge of 1.5 cents per mile traveled, which means the people who have the biggest incentive to participate are those who drive gas hogs. If your car gets 20 miles per gallon, your user fees for a given distance would match your fuel taxes. If your car gets 15 miles per gallon, your user fees for a given distance would be lower than your fuel taxes. And if you drive an electric car ... why in the world would you volunteer at all unless you have a sense of civic obligation or you're a complete policy wonk? The point is, people who drive cars that should pay per-mile fees have the smallest incentive to do so.
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To some degree, the program's design reflects these incentives. It limits the tax-break crowd by capping the number of participating vehicles with mileage lower than 22 miles per gallon at 3,000. But that means the state will have to convince up to 2,000 people to participate in the program even though they take a tax hit for doing so. Voluntary participation may be attractive to those with a negative tax incentive, the state reasons, because a couple of the private companies engaged to do the tracking and billing - Azuga and Verizon Telematics - will offer to sell participants related services they might want. Offering such services is also why such businesses are interested in participating.
Still, only 1,524 potential participants had expressed interest in OReGO as of May 5. It launches July 1. As a serious policy for revenue-generation, hoping that people across the state volunteer to pay more than they have to leaves a lot to be desired.
That's where the HB2271 approach comes in. The bill would have required vehicles with a mileage rating of at least 55 mpg (including electric cars) to pay either a per-mile usage charge or a flat annual fee. A similar bill, HB2453, failed in 2013. What passed, instead, is Senate Bill 810. It created the OReGO program, extending the experimental phase, though notably without an end date. Barring legislative action, OReGO's limited, voluntary program will simply continue indefinitely.
Giving OReGO a couple of years to function before, once again, considering mandatory participation is hardly a crisis and may prove useful. For instance, operating a per-mile system on a reasonably large scale may convince Oregonians that the model is viable and not a threat to personal privacy (a frequently stated concern).
Eventually, however, the Legislature needs to end the ever-growing experimental stage and compel people who pay little or nothing in fuel taxes to contribute meaningfully to the upkeep of the roads they use. The 2017 session would not be too soon. The Legislature may, as in 2013, have difficulty rounding up the votes needed to pass such a measure on its own. If so, it can always send a mandate to the ballot and allow Oregonians who do pay fuel taxes to determine what's fair.