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Hybrid rise spells gas tax demise
Hybrids and other flex-fuel vehicles are in high demand, but that raises serious doubts about the future of the fuel tax as an ongoing source of highway funding. "Overall the gas tax, over a number of years, will decline for a number of reasons," said Speaker of the House Margaret Kelliher Friday. "As we invest in other options, as we try to encourage conservation, more vehicles can go longer on the tank. It's going to be a long-term question." Five new 2007 Toyota Prius electric hybrids joined the University of Minnesota's motor pool this week. The U's fleet maintenance manager, Andy Basil, was more than happy to engage in some show-and-tell. "Just like that the vehicle's on," said Andy as he powered it up Friday in southeast Minneapolis. As we strained to hear the virtually silent electric motor he assured us it was running. "Don't hear anything, but the vehicle's on." And once we were rolling the dashboard display reassured us we were moving on electric power, that the parallel gasoline engine hadn't kicked on yet. But it's the range of the vehicles that makes them so popular among the staff and students who rent them from the fleet office. The miles per gallon readout was at 47. "For people looking to go up north they can go and come back, on a tank of gas. They love that," said Basil. "Anytime you can go up to Crookston and back on a tank of gas, they?ll take it." As we were riding with Basil in Minneapolis, other hybrids were appearing in a photo op on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C. President Bush touted them as part of the cure for America's addiction to fossil fuels. But as we move away from gasoline, transportation planners are looking for reliable and fair means of paying for highway construction and maintenance. With the gasoline tax the fairness factor has been pretty obvious: the more you drive, the more gas you burn and the more tax you pay. But Rep. Bernie Lieder began to argue 10 years ago that charging by the mile would be more fair, because some drivers are putting more wear and tear on the highways. Lieder's mileage tax went pretty much unnoticed until the emergence of hybrids and flex-fuel vehicles. Now alt-fuel drivers are putting thousands of miles on the highways without paying much gasoline taxes at all. "It would be collected the same way you pay your gasoline tax. You wouldn't know the difference," said the Crookston DFLer. He points to a pilot project in Oregon featuring specially equipped cars that beam odometer readings to a special receiver on the gas pump. The pump calculates the mileage tax on the spot and adds that to the bill. It automatically subtracts the regular fuel tax. Governor Pawlenty wants to spend $5 million on a similar pilot project in Minnesota, recognizing that the fuel tax will fade as the workhorse of the highway funding formula. But in the short term expect the gasoline tax debate to heat up at the Capitol, as the highway funding crunch tightens. "If Minnesota doesn?t get busy you?re not gonna be able to match the $4.3 billion in federal Highway Trust Fund money available to Minnesota under the law," U.S. Rep Jim Oberstar told state lawmakers this week. Congressman Oberstar, who now heads the powerful House Transportation Infrastructure Committee in Washington addressed a joint session of Minnesota's transportation committees Tuesday. He urged them to up the state's fuel tax from 20-cents a gallon to 25 or 30 cents a gallon. "And if you do the right thing, people understand it and they support you," said Oberstar. While hybrids may spell the end of the gasoline tax as we know it, it will take years for automakers to produce them in significant quantities. The U of M, for instance, had to wait two years for its latest batch of five Toyota hybrids.
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