The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LaDOTD) Secretary Shawn Wilson have proposed a pilot program in order to see if a road user fee would be better to replace Louisiana's gas tax.
Wilson presented the idea to members of the Louisiana Electric Vehicle Task Force on February 15 in order to address an anticipated loss of $563 million in fuel tax revenues by 2032. This estimation is based off of increased fuel efficiency and electric vehicle usage.
"We are spending about $74 million over the next five years" on EV charging infrastructure, Wilson said. "The downstream effect is … having more vehicles fueled by alternative modes of energy."
"It all is going to have an impact and we've always said that the gas tax we use today … there's probably not the type of growth that's necessary" to fund the state's transportation system, he said.
Currently, Louisiana's gas tax is 20 cents per gallon at the pump.
According to a report from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor released last fall found higher fuel efficiency and the influx of electric vehicles will reduce motor fuel tax revenues by $563.6 million by 2032. That's assuming that electric and hybrid vehicles account for 30% of new cars sold in Louisiana by then.
The report found that declining revenue will be insufficient to address the state's nearly $15 billion in unmet transportation infrastructure needs.
"We have been thinking about doing this and the most easiest and the most appropriate thing, I think, for us to start would be a pilot using DOTD vehicles, where we would develop a pilot program using the department of transportation vehicles and any other state vehicle, whether it's legislators or other state agencies that want to be a part of this study," said Wilson.
According to Wilson, the pilot program would be funded by LaDOTD and would cover up to 4,000 vehicles.
"We would be paying gas taxes for…this pilot, but we would also be tracking data to see what it would be had we done the alternative, which is charging them for the mileage-based user fees," Wilson said. "Those are the two ideas we have that I think would provide this body and the legislative body some real good data to assess and put into the hopper as you think about how do we fund transportation for the next 15, 20 years."
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Source: TheCenterSquare.com
