Sean Duffy, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the US Department of Transportation, thinks owners of electric vehicles should pay to use the road.
“How to do that, I think, is a little bit more challenging,” Duffy said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
The former Republican lawmaker is right that implementing the change, which would affect owners of Tesla, Rivian, Lucid and other EVs, will be a challenge.
Federally funded road repairs are paid for primarily by taxes collected on diesel and gasoline. EVs do not consume gas, which means they do not contribute to fuel tax revenue. Some argue that this creates a funding gap.
It is not within DOT’s authority to make this change on its own. The agency would need to work with Congress to pass new legislation authorizing the tax or fee. It could, for example, amend the Highway Revenue Act, which was passed in 1956 and established a federal fuel tax. Today, it is 18.3 cents per gallon.
Lawmakers would also need to come up with a new enforcement framework, potentially measuring and reporting EV mileage or electricity consumption. How to do this accurately and ensure privacy will be a technical hurdle. And such a fee would face strong opposition from environmental advocates and automakers.
In many states, EV owners already pay to use the roads to compensate for the fact that they do not contribute to fuel tax revenue. Some, like Georgia and Illinois, charge a flat fee (and in the case of Illinois that fee high than what owners of gas-burning cars pay). Others, such as Utah, charge based on weight or mileage, which is tracked by the state.
Duffy’s statement is part of a broader politicization of electric vehicles by the incoming Trump administration. Trump has framed EVs as a symbol of liberal policies and has threatened to roll back EV tax credits that were part of President Joe Biden’s anti-inflation legislation. During his first term, Trump also rolled back Obama-era corporate average fuel economy standards that were designed to help drive the adoption of EVs and hybrids.
In contrast, Trump has focused on coal and oil; The slogan “Drill, baby, drill” became one of his rallying cries in the last election.
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