Nevada eyes Oregon program to tax motorists by the mile

There has been growing concern nationwide that highway funding is declining because motorists aren’t buying as much gasoline. Our responsible environmental acts are now biting us in the backside. We drive more fuel-efficient vehicles — some of them electric or hybrid models — and there is less revenue going into the highway maintenance fund.

Owners of electric cars aren’t putting anything into the highway fund. But to give credit where credit’s due, they are helping to keep our air cleaner and are contributing to making the environment less noisy.

But they do use the roads and should pay into the road fund, right?

I looked into the issue when a Warrior reader asked whether owners of electric cars have to pay extra fees when they register their vehicles.

Kevin Malone of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles said owners of electric and hybrid cars pay the same registration fees based on the value of their vehicles.

“The only special rules for them is that they’re treated differently on smog checks,” he said.

Conventional gasoline-powered vehicles are exempt from smog checks twice. That could be two years of registrations for a single owner or an initial registration, plus a new registration if a vehicle is sold.

For electric and hybrid vehicles, a smog check is exempt for five model years, so a vehicle bought in 2015 wouldn’t have to be checked until 2021.

“Other than that, they’re subject to the same rules,” Malone said.

So that means owners of hybrids and electrics aren’t paying as much, if at all, into the highway fund as gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

Should they?

Ask an electric or hybrid vehicle owner, and you’re likely to hear how much more environmentally responsible they are and that they paid a higher price at the dealership to do that.

Meanwhile, the highway fund languishes.

Nevada legislators have looked at the issue and commissioned a report from researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the University of Nevada, Reno.

One of the key findings was that a regional policy, not a state policy, would be important to implement because our state sees so much tourist traffic on its roads.

That is where the state of Oregon comes in. Oregon also has studied the problem of diminishing highway fund revenue since 2001. Over the years, it has taken a leadership role in establishing a system to pay for miles traveled instead of with a gasoline tax.

It has studied what it calls a “road usage charge” and has helped form the Western RUC Consortium, a group of Western states considering the same issue.

In July, Oregon became the first state in the nation to roll out a voluntary plan so that state transportation officials could examine the pros and cons of the operation and crunch data produced through the experience.

They call it OReGO, and here’s how it works:

An Oregon motorist signs up and chooses one of three private-sector providers of technology to track gasoline purchases and mileage driven. Data are gathered through a device plugged into a vehicle’s data port.

At the end of each month, the motorist gets a bill for the mileage driven at 1½ cents a mile. The amount of gasoline tax paid is figured as a credit against the mileage rate paid.

The system is set up so that a vehicle getting 20 miles to the gallon would break even under the gas tax system. A vehicle that gets better mileage is going to pay more than Oregon’s 30-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax. Vehicles getting less than 20 miles a gallon would get a gas tax reimbursement.

The call for volunteers to test the system is being capped at 5,000 motorists. Surprisingly, the earliest volunteers for the program are people with fuel-efficient vehicles that probably would pay more on a per-mile basis than through the gasoline tax. Media reports suggest they want to be a part of a pioneering effort to develop a fair road maintenance payment system.

Under the program, motorists have other responsibilities, including monitoring any mileage driven outside the state of Oregon or on nonpublic roads.

Plenty of critics have weighed in on OReGO, including some who say the program creates an incentive to drive gas-guzzlers instead of energy-efficient vehicles.

Others have privacy concerns about the technology because some systems use GPS tracking.

The Oregon experiment probably will be watched regionally and nationally. If Nevada were to undertake such a plan, it would have to be approved by the Legislature.

Questions and comments should be sent to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com. Please include your phone number. Find the Road Warrior on Twitter @RJroadwarrior