In the Virginia Transportation bill, the major decision taken was to regionalize sales tax, hit NoVa with that, and to replace the gaso tax with sales tax. I do not know for sure why they could not do the same thing with gaso taxes. NOVA gasoline prices are already the highest in the region, for reasons I do not understand (local gaso taxes already?). Next time I go to the gas station I am going to go inside and ask if they can tell me what the taxes are on a gallon.
My guess is supply and demand. Gas is much cheaper in richmond and gets cheaper the further south you go. VA is 17.5 cents plus Virginia 17.5 17.5 0.6 “Other Taxes” include a 0.6 cpg petroleum storage tank fee (UST). There is an additional 2.1% sales tax on motor fuels for localities that are part of the Northern Virginia Transportation District From gas buddy.
Gas tax in Alabama is 1.5 cents lower than VA. You could always move there with bob and "send more money out of state" than VA does.
So sounds like we have 2% or +6 cents extra gaso tax in NoVA, plus I assume reformulated gasoline adds another 20-30 cents. GasBuddy has a very good gasoline price map. Most of VA is lowest in the nation but then we have NoVA in red. Come July_2013 the only state with lower gaso tax than VA is Alaska at 8 cents.
Driving through nova when we were scouting areas to live in va I knew I didn't want to live there just based on the insane amount of traffic no matter the day or time. Coupled with ridiculous house prices and property taxes pretty much sealed the deal with us. They ought to just call it southern Maryland.
NOVA Weighs In On Allocation of VDOT Transportation Funds - Burke, VA Patch "Our transit funding needs, performance and level of local effort is 12 times that of the rest of the Commonwealth," McKay said, adding that BRAC will continue to challenge the region. "Early news reports of little impact fail to realize we are only at the tip of the iceberg." Billions needed in nova, they need to pony up.
That's ancient history. What NoVA was complaining about was we paid most of VDOT's salaries, but when it comes to services and roads, they focus on south Virginia. I think we get our own NVDOT with the new transport bill.
Governor McDonnell Ceremonially Signs Virginia's Historic Bi-Partisan Transportation Funding Bill "Speaking about this historic legislation, Marty Nohe, Prince William County supervisor and chairman of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority said, "Years of inaction in the General Assembly have resulted in Northern Virginia now being ranked as part of the most congested region in the United States. No other singular issue has as great an impact on our ability to attract and retain economic development opportunities and jobs. Now, with the passage of this historic compromise, the local governments in Northern Virginia will be able to work collaboratively to address our critical regional needs so that we can remain economically competitive and improve our citizens' quality of life." NVTA seems happy with it.
Um, I'd be happy to join in saying mean things about ALEC and big oil, but before I really get rolling, is it possible we've been trolled? As far as I can tell, there isn't a bill 1038 in the North Carolina House: North Carolina General Assembly - House 1038 Information/History (2013-2014 Session) ... it looks like the highest-numbered House bill as of this moment is H1012: North Carolina General Assembly - Last Action on Bills with Actions in 2013 My not finding it doesn't necessarily mean it's made up; maybe the OP just got the number wrong or something. On the other hand, the 'net is full of outraged calls to action over made-up bills, so it's hard to know which ones to take seriously. That's why I always appreciate it when the person posting takes the trouble to provide an actual link to the bill if it's real. Pretty much every legislature has their bills online now, so it's darned easy to do. -Chap
I think NVTA takes over the NoVA road maintenance from VDOT under the bill. Yes the dem politicians here were ecstatic to get the tax monies from Northern VA people like me. They had committed to projects, and needed the governor to say who was going to pay for it. So they got the tax money they needed without having to run for re-election on a tax increase basis.
Seems to be real enough in some of the Rep sponsored bills. RALEIGH: Road Worrier: Hybrid, electric car fees could help make up for lost taxes | Road Worrier | NewsObserver.com
You are right we need some names of sponsor legislators. But if we fell for a troll, it is because I think someone else mentioned a few weeks ago NC was considering this. Seems like a funny thing to troll on, because hybrids get little vocal support, even here to be honest.
Crud crud crud. Sometimes I just have a too optimistic view of things. There's an appropriations bill that was born in the NC Senate: North Carolina General Assembly - Senate Bill 402 Information/History (2013-2014 Session) It passed in the Senate on 23 May and went to the House on 24 May. (The actions list doesn't show the House number assigned yet, so for all I know it could really be 1038 and the website just has a really long update lag.) Check out section 34.21.(a). It's in edition 2 and edition 3 (the one that was approved). It wasn't in the original filed version or edition 1. It comes from a complete substitute that was reported up from committee and replaced the original bill on 21 May. http://www.ncleg.net/Applications/BillLookUp/LoadBillDocument.aspx?SessionCode=2013&DocNum=5503&SeqNum=1 See page K 2. amazing.... -Chap
Great...does this mean we can back to blaming Big Oil and ALEC? Except I am guessing Big Oil is innocent. But ALEC has my interest piqued, I must say.
I can kind of see the bind a legislator might feel stuck in.... It seems more fair to get road use funds by taxing how much people use the roads, not just a flat amount for having a car (since people put different amounts of use on the roads). For a long time a gasoline tax could be seen as a pretty good proxy for how much somebody uses the roads. Now gasoline isn't the only car fuel, so to keep the same funding model, they'd need a tax on gasoline-used-to-make-cars-go, diesel-used-to-make-cars-go, propane-used-to-make-cars-go, compressed-natural-gas-used-to-make-cars-go, watthours-used-to-make-cars-go, hydrogen-used-to-make-cars-go, french-fry-oil-used-to-make-cars-go. But not natural gas used for heating, watthours used for fridges, or oil used to cook fries. That starts to sound hard to implement. And absurd enough that it leads straight to the idea of just using miles driven as a much more straightforward proxy for road wear. And that news report said they had been discussing a straight miles tax too, but that must also have seemed hard to implement. Easier to just go make some people pay a flat amount extra for having a car. ...except, of course, that's the approach that was avoided in step 1 because it's more fair to tax usage. And it's a piecemeal change. It would be one thing to say, ok, gasoline tax has become absurd, we'll switch to miles driven for everybody. Or even, if that's too hard, we'll give up on measuring miles and go completely to a flat fee for having a car, for everybody. It just ends up being perverse to kinda keep the gas tax, and then also kinda make some drivers pay more for having a car, exactly because they cared to get one less wasteful of resources. -Chap
For the hybrid, a logical approach would be to pro-rate the fee based upon EPA rated MPG for all vehicles. But then it becomes clear this "fee" is a luxury car or to dig up the dead, Hummer subsidy. BTW, this is a typical 'bait and switch' tactic. There is a legitimate issue with EVs (and any non-road taxed fuel including waste-oil diesel.) But personally, it looks more like "whack a hippy" to hurt hybrids. Sad to say, the lower performing hybrids are going to be hurt more because they don't save as much fuel. Bob Wilson
