Washington State Senate passes $100 annual electric car fee

[n2doc]

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The Washington state Senate has passed a bill to charge electric car owners a $100 annual fee to compensate for the lack of gas taxes they pay.
Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, the Camano Island Democrat who sponsored the bill, says while electric cars are good for the environment, they put the same wear and tear on the state's roads that gas vehicles do.
The same bill passed in the Senate last year but failed in the House.
Washington's gas tax stands at 37.5 cents per gallon, and is the state's largest source of transportation dollars.
The bill does not apply to hybrid vehicles or to those that don't exceed 35 mph.


Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/WA-Senate-passes-100-annual-electric-car-fee-3305434.php

[Kennah]

1. A change is inevitable in how we pay for roads, but I am not sure we should impose the fee just yet.

[provis99]

2. so which oil company was behind this idea?

[TheWraith]

5. Uh, that's still vastly lower than the gas taxes you'd pay.

A regular driver would probably pay several times as much in gas taxes over the course of a year.

[wtmusic]

3. Just take it off the tab for the amount of pollution-related illness we prevent

and keep the change.

[johnd83]

4. I think this is jumping the gun

Right now there are so few it doesn't really matter. In the future it might be an issue but right now we just need to get as many on the road as possible and adding a tax doesn't help much.

[txlibdem]

6. 18-Wheelers cause 2900 times the damage a passenger car does

Do they pay 2900 times the gas tax? Nope. Do they pay 2900 times the vehicle registration fees? Nope.

You and I, the common workers, are subsidizing the trucking industry. I'd start there first if I honestly wanted to pay for fixing the roads.

[Nihil]

7. Sadly, the EV driver is going to be a far easier target ...

... so justice, equality and all of the other bluster take second place to
political convenience ...

[txlibdem]

8. Sad but true

I'm losing faith in elections to bring about the end of this theft from the poor/give to the rich society of ours. The end will happen. They've pushed us way too far, now we're awake.