Senate votes 30-2 to repeal surcharge on gas hybrid cars, sends bill to governor
The Senate voted 30-2 today to remove a $75 annual surcharge from gas hybrid vehicles in Idaho, with an emergency clause that will make it effective as soon as Gov. Butch Otter signs it into law. The $75 surcharge would remain in effect for plug-in hybrid vehicles, as would the current $140 annual surcharge on vehicle registration for plug-in electric vehicles.
Idaho imposed the fees two years ago as part of a transportation funding package, with the idea that electric and hybrid vehicles wouldn’t pay their share for road work like motorists who would pay a 7-cent gas tax increase. But that thinking didn’t take into account gas hybrids, which run only on gas and don’t use power from the electrical grid. Efforts to repeal the hybrid fee failed last year amid House-Senate politics; this year’s bill, HB 20, already has passed the House on a unanimous, 70-0 vote.
The two “no” votes came from Sens. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, and Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton. Siddoway told the Senate he drives a pickup that only gets 15 miles per gallon. “I’m getting hurt by this bill – I think everybody that drives a regular fuel pickup is getting hurt by this bill,” he said. Siddoway said those drivers are paying more in fees or taxes per mile for road work.
Sen. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, said, “We don’t have a fair tax system to maintain our roadways.” He said he has a Jeep that weighs about 3,500 pounds and a truck that weighs about 7,000 pounds. “I pay the exact same price for registration, and my Jeep actually gets less gas mileage than my truck does,” Hagedorn said. “The wear and tear on the roadways is greater with my truck. So why is it that I pay more for my Jeep, because of its gas mileage, than I do for my truck?”
“As vehicles get more efficient, we’re going to be getting less revenue to maintain and expand our system. We have to come up with a different methodology,” Hagedorn said. But, he said, “I do believe that when we were here at 1:30 in the morning two years ago making the vote on HB 312, we probably went a little bit too far with the hybrids when we did not define what a hybrid was. I believe this is a good bill.”
HB 20 now moves to Gov. Butch Otter’s desk.
