Such a scenario would see the government monitor drivers' every movement via GPS to check how many miles they were driving and tax them appropriately.

this part concerns me

this part concerns me

How else would mileage be measured? Odometers are easy to tamper with, even the computer based ones.

How else would mileage be measured? Odometers are easy to tamper with, even the computer based ones.

How else would mileage be measured? Odometers are easy to tamper with, even the computer based ones.

I'm of the belief that if you can't come up with a way to execute an idea without violating my privacy and civil rights, then you have to come up with a new idea.

Thats my thought on legalizing marijuana.

Go on...

Ive said it a million times.
Go find it, lazy.

Ive said it a million times.
Go find it, lazy.

Such a scenario would see the government monitor drivers' every movement via GPS to check how many miles they were driving and tax them appropriately.

Oregon envisions gas tax based on miles, not gallons
by Edward Walsh, The Oregonian
Wednesday January 14, 2009, 8:29 PM

Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants the state to become a center for the production of electric vehicles.

In Washington, D.C., the incoming Obama administration and Congress are pushing automakers to improve fuel efficiency and build cars that run on some fuel other than gasoline.

All of this would reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, but it also would reduce Oregon's revenue from the gas tax, the main source of money to maintain and improve the Oregon highway system.

As a result, the Oregon Department of Transportation is in the early stages of an experiment to meet the expected decline in gas tax revenue by developing a transportation tax system that is based not on gallons purchased at the pump but on miles traveled within the state.

It's called a "vehicle mileage tax," and it's raising concerns over privacy and practicality.

Kulongoski's proposed 2009-11 budget includes $10 million to continue the experiment, which most recently involved a pilot project in Portland using 285 vehicles and two service stations that were equipped with technology that calculates the mileage fee.

"This is not something the governor expects to be in place next year or even in five years," said Anna Richter-Taylor, Kulongoski's spokeswoman. "It's probably eight to 10 years away. But gas tax revenues are not sustainable so he wants to be sure that when we do face that cliff, we don't fall off."

The Oregon Constitution mandates that gas tax revenues can only be spent to maintain and improve the state highway system. They account for about 60 percent of ODOT's highway budget. That budget is getting squeezed from two directions, said James Whitty, manager of the agency's Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding.

One is inflation, driven by the rising cost of building materials and labor, which has been running at about 5 percent a year. The other is a decline in revenues due to improved fuel efficiency that costs the highway budget one-half of 1 percent in each of the past two years, Whitty said.

The Legislature saw this coming. In 2001, lawmakers created a task force to study alternatives to the gas tax.

The result is the proposal that uses Global Positioning System equipment to track miles traveled within Oregon. Whitty said the technology exists but needs to be perfected before a mileage-based tax system could be developed statewide.

How it would work
ODOT conducted the pilot project with help from engineers from Oregon State University. The system requires vehicles to be equipped with GPS devices and for service station pumps to have electronic reading devices to collect mileage data from the vehicles.

The pump reading devices first determine electronically whether a vehicle is equipped to pay a mileage-based fee. If not, the normal gas tax is applied to the transaction. For vehicles with a GPS device, a mileage fee would be added to the cost, and the gas tax would be deducted.

ODOT has concluded that it would be too difficult and expensive to retrofit existing vehicles to pay a mileage-based fee, so the new system would apply only to new vehicles with the necessary GPS devices. Whitty said that means it would take 20 years or more to phase in a new system completely.

Before that process even begins, there are dozens of issues to be resolved.

Zoned fees
The Legislature would have to set the mileage fee and decide whether additional fees should apply for miles traveled in designated zones -- for example, Interstate 5 in Portland during rush hour. A mileage-based tax system would make such "congestion pricing" feasible.

Whitty said the biggest single concern is privacy and public suspicion that a GPS-based system could be used to track motorists. He said the devices used in the pilot project did not send out an identifying signal and did not store any data for later retrieval.

"The device could locate itself but nobody else could track it," he said.

Others have complained that a mileage-based tax would be unfair because gas guzzlers would be charged the same fee as fuel-efficient vehicles driven the same distance. Whitty said depending on what policy makers decide, a fee system could be devised that would reward fuel-efficient vehicles.

There are many other hurdles to clear before Oregon gets close to replacing the gas tax, including the willingness of manufacturers to make the GPS devices standard equipment in new vehicles. But Whitty said the need to do that will become increasingly clear.

"Vehicles are coming that get upwards of 100 miles per gallon and electric vehicles are coming," he said. "They're not too far away, and they won't pay any gas tax. We need a road revenue system that can sustain itself."

Senate Business and Transportation Committee Chairman Rick Metsger, D-Welches, said he is not ready to commit to the $10 million that Kulongoski seeks in his budget, but he supports continued experiments into alternatives to the traditional gas tax. He said the solution will probably have to come from the federal government, but only after states such as Oregon lead the way with such experiments.

"As we look into the future, we have to come up with a way to pay for transportation without assuming the amount of gasoline you buy is the basis for it," Metsger said.

Basically this proposal is saying "We want to make it easier and less painful for SUV and truck owners and to do that we are going to make things harder on small vehicle owners". And that's to say nothing of the matter of commercial trucks causing most damage. - B-hed