This and everything else you wrote is true, but also abstract and long term. If a gas tax is enacted today, for example, ten million lower income people in Los Angeles will be hurt now and for decades. The poorest neighbourhoods are also the ones with the worst public transit, and public transit takes generations to fix. Same with regulating and incentivizing car makers to do better. We can’t penalize poorer people yet again for climate change while we wait for things to get better.
Better is a general carbon tax with exemptions for income level and various other things. It’s a bit more complicated than a gas tax, but can be very fair and affects everyone according to what they cost society (ie. it’s a progressive tax, not a flat or regressive one).
But a gas tax (the country’s highest) has already been enacted in California. Are you suggesting that we repeal it? Or just that it should never be higher than it is now?
And influencing what new cars people choose to purchase today and in the coming years is not some abstract, long-term issue. The sooner we put in strong incentives (targeting both consumers and manufacturers) for fuel efficiency the sooner people will choose to purchase fuel efficient vehicles.
I’m suggesting gas taxes are not the best solution to the problem.
This is a separate question and is easily addressed other ways. Carbon taxes include vehicle size, and we can still have high registration fees and automaker incentives. Do all the the things, as long as they aren’t regressive.
What is the best carbon taxing / vehicle efficiency incentive program you’ve seen in any country that you don’t consider to be regressive? To my knowledge even the most progressive countries generally rely heavily on fuel taxes. If the solution is “easily addressed,” as you say, someone must have done it by now, right?
We’re on the same side of these issues, but now you’re mixing up my words and skimming over things.
I gave Canada as the example with a well-implemented evidence-based Carbon Tax.
I said vehicle buying choices are easily addressed through automaker incentives and registration fees. Carbon taxes can include these as well, if needed but not necessarily. Carbon taxes affect gas prices as well, but have low income rebates to prevent regression. This is the “it’s more complicated” part I alluded to.
It’s crucial that we not put solving climate change on the backs of the poor, not just because it isn’t fair, but also because they frankly can’t afford to solve it for everyone else and thus it won’t get solved that way. It’s going to cost many many trillions to mitigate and the rich need to pay that because they can.
Ok, but based on the results you and I might disagree on what “well implemented” means. The top 5 vehicles sold in Canada in 2021 include 4 large fuel-guzzling pickups and an SUV. Surely some people do need these vehicles to handle winter roads but I’d bet most people could get by with something smaller if sufficiently motivated.
Flawed and regressive, but from what you’re describing those problems are known ones that can be addressed with remedies like better usage metrics and income-based rebates and discounts for shared vehicles or carpools. There are all sorts of tools available to track these things, and while they’re not cost-free they’re a lot cheaper than building new highways or constantly playing catch-up on road maintenance or dealing with the fallout from the climate emergency.
Driving a non-commerical car into and around any urban core as a matter of regular habit (including commutes) should result in economic pain for the driver, especially if they’re not carpooling and especially if they’re driving an internal combustion vehicle. That pain should translate directly into support and maintenance for the roads and other common traffic infrastructure they’re using, into mitigating the climate emergency, and into funding more and better mass transit options (especially for underserved communities).
The outcome I’d like to see is something like the one the pandemic forced on American cities: reduced congestion on the roads with cars only being used occasionally; car lanes converted into bike lanes or outdoor spaces for local businesses; side streets closed off entirely to the cars of non-residents; a re-thinking of the social and economic utility of expressways and parking lots; and a greater acceptance of remote work that doesn’t require a commute.* Some of that will, fortunately, stay with us at no significant cost. However, some of it will only be maintained by a combination of disincentives and incentives to make sure we don’t backslide into the dystopian vision of Robert Moses.
[* it also dealt a blow to mass transit for obvious reasons, but that’s something that can be revived and re-funded once the public health crisis allows, assuming the political will is there.]
Given how expensive they are, that sort of fee will just have people grumbling about the government and shell out for the fee.
I do find some large vehicles annoying, especially the lifted ones with diesel engine for some reason. In MO you will see big trucks with no license plate because they are technically “farm” vehicles. I grew up around farm vehicles. They only look that nice the first day of delivery.
Although things like Tahoes and Suburbans sure come in handy when you got a bunch fishing gear, coolers, etc and can tow a boat for a day at the lake.
Increasing the gas tax will further hurt the working class–the poorest hurt most.
The only thing that doesn’t cost more during this period of inflation is labor, particularly for the mythological “low-skilled” jobs. If someone makes $15/hr, can’t afford a fuel-efficient vehicle, and lives where public transport cannot take him/her, $6+ gasoline is already crippling. Adding taxes and fees means giving the wealthy a pass while punching the working class in the stomach, IMO.
ETA–Sorry, did not mean to directly reply to you, Mister44
I spent years as a musician living off a dirt road in New England. I was actually using the 4 wheel drive and/or cargo space in my Jeep Grand Cherokee roughly 85% of the time. I have frequently lived in places which required me to haul firewood or hay, bring my own trash to a landfill, or make bulk supply runs- The kind of places where a truck or SUV is a necessity. I’ve only ever lived in a handful of places that had any kind of public transit.
My current vehicle weighs in around 15 tons, but it’s also my house… so… there’s that.
I sometimes drive a F250, crew cab, short-bed pickup. It’s a TANK, parks like crap, and I found a Prius stuck in the wheel well. I avoid my narrow old town streets and can’t imagine having to drive it in DC.
A “if your vehicle can’t park inside the box” rule, and a “vehicle cannot extend into the driving lanes when parked or the parking areas when driving” rule for narrow streets would keep the behemoth vehicles out of the congested areas.
That’s not really why. You can force their hand, which the government continually does by upping the fuel efficiency standards, but at the end of the day it’s the consumers choice in what they buy. A 2022 Corolla Hybrid is $24k and makes 52 mpg city AND highway. The Maverick is a basic FWD truck. In today’s market that only goes so far. People wanted the niceness of a loaded Camry and the functionality of a full size pickup, hence why you have +$60k trucks with leather interiors.
My 04 Corolla was spartan in comparison to a model almost 20 years newer. There are some power options missing from the lower models, but mine didn’t even have ABS, much less any active avoidance systems. The days of cheap and efficient are long dead.
And the best way (which I’m sure you were also alluding to here) is to make it so the only consumer choices are ones that benefit society.
Federal and state MPG standards have been some of the best tools we’ve had for the environment. When you set fleet minimums, car makers are forced to make efficient cars and then consumers can only buy efficient cars. This is one of many good tools we have for this, but the point is it cannot ever be left to consumers alone.
Negative externalities are communal problems that have to be solved centrally by government incentives. Corporations will never do it and consumers will never do it. Companies have pushing the blame on to consumers to buy our way out of pollution, climate change, and everything else since the Crying Indian ads. It amounts to privatizing profits and socializing losses. It’s about time we stopped falling for it as a society.
I haven’t yet seen any comments that reflect on the mostly symbolic nature of this measure. DC is tiny, and I’m willing to bet that a very, very large proportion of vehicles on the streets of DC are not registered in the city. That, plus the typical urban vs. suburban/rural mix of vehicle types, makes me guess that the large majority of monster SUVs and pickups have Maryland or Virginia plates. As such, a disincentive based on DC registration fees will likely have a negligible effect.
If I was the DC city council, I would instead make a bunch of changes that would simply make it expensive and annoying to operate and park a large vehicle in the city. Like requirements that only a small proportion of parking spaces allow large vehicles, or large vehicles need additional expensive permitting to operate in the city, or tolls that only apply to large vehicles.
Not quite, because that would mean forcing everyone to ride bikes everywhere. I’m ok with the idea that consumers are given a variety of choices, some better than others, but that if they do choose to go with the less efficient or more harmful choices just because they really really want it for whatever reason, that they should have to contribute extra money that can be used to mitigate the harms.
