Virginia’s Senate is expected to pass a fuel tax today that would increase by 1 cent each year over the next five years to pay for road maintenance.
The new revenues would replace those lost by the pending abolition of the “abuser fees” on bad and dangerous drivers, which were once hoped to raise $65 million a year to help keep the commonwealth’s highway system in working order.
The plan, proposed by Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Springfield, eventually would add 5 cents to the existing 17.5 cent fuel tax and raise about $281 million a year, about the size of the projected maintenance shortfall. If passed, it would be the first increase in the gas tax since 1986.
Proponents say the increase wouldn’t have a big impact on consumers and will be absorbed into the daily ebb and flow of gas prices.
“The average driver will never pay this tax, because market forces will balance out the one penny per year,” said Bob Chase, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance.
The General Assembly put the “abuser fees” in place last year as part of a statewide road funding package.
But lawmakers relented after outraged motorists discovered the fees applied only to in-state residents and added as much as thousands of dollars to the cost of some traffic offenses.
The bills that repeal the fees have passed the House and Senate, though there is little agreement on how to replace the revenue between the chambers.
The increase in the gas tax is expected to be a tough sell in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates.
“You are going to cut taxes on criminals and raise taxes on everybody else, that’s what this bill does,” said Del. Dave Albo, R-Springfield, one of the architects of the abuser fees.
“We are right back to where we started in 2006, when we were two weeks away from a government shutdown because the Senate Democrats wanted to raise taxes and the House didn’t.”
