A Welcome ‘No’ to a VMT Tax

The news from the Obama White House that it has no intention of pursuing a new tax regime based on the number of miles vehicles travel is most welcome for the trucking industry.

Concerns were heightened last week, when someone leaked a draft report indicating that the administration was going to pursue a VMT tax as a successor to the federal fuel taxes as the primary mechanism for funding highway construction and repair.

“This is not a bill supported by the administration,” the Department of Transportation reported in a statement last week. “This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not take into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”

That’s pretty definitive talk, and we’re glad to hear it.

As we’ve said time and time again, the best, easiest and most efficient way to raise more money to improve and repair our road infrastructure is to increase the federal fuel taxes that are already levied on gasoline and diesel fuel.

These taxes — 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel — haven’t been increased since 1993, when the retail cost of fuel was around $1 a gallon.

As fuel prices have jumped to $4 a gallon and inflation has seriously eroded the value of the revenue raised by the 18-year-old taxes, Congress and a succession of presidents have rejected calls to raise the levies.

As a result, our infrastructure is ailing, and the Highway Trust Fund — where the fuel tax money is sent — is nearly empty.

In the long run, as vehicles get more fuel-efficient and as we develop alternative ways of powering our cars and trucks, we may need to consider reshaping the way the nation raises money to pay for infrastructure improvements.

But for now, there is no better or cost-efficient method for securing the money we need than raising the federal tax on fuels.

We hope that the administration, having abandoned a VMT tax, comes to agree with us and gets behind our ongoing call for raising the taxes to keep our road system up to the level necessary to deliver our goods.