The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a press release on July 21st that details the outline of the DRIVE act.
From the Senate Press Release
The bipartisan, multi-year Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy (DRIVE) Act would help modernize the nation’s infrastructure and transportation systems to better allow America to compete in the 21st century.”
The upshot of the draft legislation is to update the roads, bridges and other transport infrastructure for the future. As part of the this act there will be levied a user fee for Electric Vehicles ( I expect this to include any vehicle with an electric drive component, PHEV or Hybrids.)
- Extends new user fee to electric vehicles: The DRIVE Act ensures all users of the roads and bridges pay their fair share with a new federal share program initializing new state controlled user fees.
In theory I have no problem paying my fair share for use of the roads. But the track record of Federal and State governments is not good on using new money to improve. What happens more often is old funds allocated for infrastructure repair are repourposed when the new money comes in. The old Social Security Shell game used by the Department of Transportation.
Only time will tell if this act passes. I fully expect to be levied a fee (TAX) at some point. I just hope that it is no more that I used to pay in gasoline taxes.
You can read the full press release here.
