Russ Steele
On the 15th of November the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to close a loophole that allowed SUVs and other light trucks to have lower fuel efficiency standards than the 27.5 mpg required by autos. The lawsuit brought by 11 states, environmental groups and others, requires the NHTSA to set fuel economy standards for large pickup trucks that are on par with autos. Currently, trucks and SUVs are required to achieve 22.2 mpg for 2007 models. The new standard finalized in May of 2006 would have boosted that requirement to 24.1 mpg by 2011. But environmental groups argued that 38 mpg can be readily achieved for autos and light trucks by 2015, thus the CAFE should be higher.
The Appeals Court agreed and farther argued that NHTSA new fuel economy standards ignored the effects of carbon dioxide emissions. More ammunition for the Governor's greenhouse gas reduction initiatives.
The same week, the Nevada County Transportation Commission was briefed that state and federal highway dollars, that are derived from fuel excise taxes, are declining and in 2009 the Federal Highway Trust Fund will lack sufficient funding to highway maintenance and expansion needs. Currently the excise tax is 18 cents per gallon for both Federal and State highway trust funds. Over time inflation has eroded the buying power of the trust funds, more importantly increased vehicle fuel efficiency is also eroding the growth in highway trust funds.
With every increase in fuel efficiency revenues decline, as autos us less fuel and pay fewer taxes, yet put increasing demands on the road infrastructure. The fuel economy of new cars improved from 14.2 miles per gallon in 1974 to 28.6 miles per gallon in 1997. Thus, without inflation, the average new car on the road today is generating half the revenue per mile as new cars did 20 years ago. Now California's effort to reduce greenhouse gases will required additional increases in fuel efficiency, accelerating the revenue decline. Thus, farther reducing the revenue needed to maintain our highways, let alone increase their capacity to meet projected population increases.
Given that the courts support the environmentalists claims, and more fuel efficient vehicles are on the horizon, and highway funding revenues will continue to fall, how will we pay to maintain our highway infrastructure? Infrastructure that is vital to California's economy.
I think that it is critical that counties and cities recognize that they can no long rely on the state and federal highway funds to meet the local need for effective and efficient road networks. Our government leaders will need to provide independent funding sources, like the half cent sales tax that Nevada City passed, Grass Valley will have on the ballot, and the County should be considering. Yes, taxes are a burden, but so are potholes and traffic congestion. In the long run congestion and potholes will have a much larger costs than a few pennies on every sale.
