Green Energy Cultists Meltdown Over Proposed EV Road-Use Fees
Albert Gore III, the son of former VP Gore, serves as the Executive Director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association and is unhappy with this development.
Regular Legal Insurrection readers will recall that I have been tracking the slow-motion collapse of the great electric vehicle experiment for years.
I reported on the Biden administration’s laughably failed promise on tens of thousands of charging stations.
Blue states slammed the brakes on California-style EV mandates once the math simply stopped computing, while Ford took a staggering $19.5 billion hit as it zapped production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning.
Finally, there was a serious market reckoning that saw EV registrations plunge 41% ry after federal tax credits were finally yanked.
In short: the government picked a winner, forced it on the American people, and the American people said: “No, thank you.”
Now, with EV ownership having been subsidized, mandated, and cheered by the green-energy zealots for the better part of a decade, Congress has decided that EV drivers ought to start paying for the roads they use, which is something every gasoline driver has quietly done at the pump all along.
As my colleague Mary Castain noted earlier this week, bipartisan House legislation introduced this week would impose a $130 annual fee on electric vehicle owners and a $35 fee on plug-in hybrid drivers, rising incrementally to $150 and $50, respectively, with the revenue directed at the Highway Trust Fund.
I think Legal Insurrection readers will be shocked to discover green energy advocates are deeply unhappy with this potential new rule.
Albert Gore III, the son of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, serves as the Executive Director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA). He is unhappy with this development.
But auto industry and environmental groups said the fee was substantially higher than the average fuel taxes paid by owners of gasoline cars. All electric vehicle owners would pay the same flat rate, whereas owners of vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel pay more if they drive more.
The fees make it harder for people to escape soaring fuel prices by buying an electric vehicle, said Albert Gore III, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, an industry group whose members include Tesla, Rivian and Lucid. His group estimated that most Americans paid $73 to $89 a year in federal fuel taxes.
Sales of used electric vehicles, which cost about the same to buy as similar gasoline-powered vehicles, have soared after the war in Iran raised fuel prices about 50 percent.
“This unduly penalizes people for making that choice,” Mr. Gore said. “I don’t argue that the number should be zero, but the number should be fair.”
Zero Emission Transportation Association’s Executive Director Albert Gore bashes the $130 EV fee proposed in the highway bill as "a punitive tax that would disproportionately impact adopters of electric vehicles, with no meaningful impact on maintaining the HTF."
— Chris Marquette (@ChrisMarquette_) May 18, 2026
Ironically, the peril is so great to the green energy cultists that they are now complaining about affordability and have prices. This complaint comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
“This legislation is a punch in the gut to the millions of Americans struggling to pay higher prices at the pump.
“With Americans demanding more affordable transportation options as gasoline tops $4.50 a gallon this bill would impose an onerous new fee on electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, while slashing investments in new EV chargers.
Hot Air’s Beege Welborne takes issue with how the elite media are presenting this development:
I love the verbiage: EV drivers could be FORCED to pay.
Oh, really? Nothing like what American taxpayers were FORCED to pay to develop and manufacture these things, not to mention finance the handsome subsidies to both the car companies and the consumer to get someone – ANYONE to buy the damn things.
And now we’re going to whine about having a yearly, tiny little $10 or so a month fee after all the bragging about not paying for gas, ete. that these insufferable snots do?
Gas taxes pay for the roads EVs drive on that EVs do not and have never paid for.
What we are witnessing isn’t some great injustice visited upon virtuous EV owners, but an overdue collision with economic reality.
After years of subsidies, mandates, media cheerleading, and regulatory muscle-flexing, the bill has finally come due. Suddenly, the same crowd that insisted EVs were the inevitable future is aghast at the notion of paying a modest share for the infrastructure they use.
The irony is rich: the “fair share” rhetoric cuts both ways, and now that it does, the enthusiasm for it is fading fast.
It turns out Americans weren’t rejecting EVs out of ignorance or obstinacy. Rather, they were rejecting a top-down experiment that never made practical or financial sense.
We will see if the proposal is actually passed by the US Senate, which tends not to support matters that are practical or fiscally sensible.
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Comments
I see the grift doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Mostly well todo buy evs. They can afford the extra 130 per year. After all they never pay the gas tax.
Good point. They don’t pay the gas tax but drive on the roads and benefit from charging stations taking up space at freeway rest stops, mall parking lots, almost anywhere they can be squeezed in.
Including Best Buy, Target, HyVee, etc.
And, IIRC, the heavier load on the tires of the EVs, caused by the battery weight, places greater wear on road surfaces than does a gasoline driven vehicle.
A local (Tumwater, WA) Safeway removed its charging stations several months ago.
My cowtown town hall doesn’t sell gas, yet six of their ten parking spaces are occupied by Tesla pedestals. It’s a puzzlement.
Your dislike for EV’s makes you justify more taxation. This time for ‘the others’ , next time for you as well.
taxation changes should be revenue neutral at minimum, so when they increase , gas tax should be lowered.
Having said that, the idea of punishing energy efficiency is stupid.
The whole green global warming BS has obfuscated the fact that ICE engines are 2-4x less energy-to-movement efficient than EV due to scale
ICE are getting very hot, you need cooling and stuff. That ‘very hot’ is basically energy that was not used for movement but wasted. Electrical motors do not get very hot, they much more efficient. Now, true, storing the energy in a battery has loss. Transmission of electricity has loss.
But burning coal in a coal power plant to generate electricity at very large scale how amazing it might sound, is still much cheaper due to the very high energy of coal, low cost. We are digging it up in the US (we have the largest deposits of coal in the world, much more energy than all oil and gas combined) and we do not have to deal with religious fanatic a$$holes in the Middle East as we have to do with oil for ICE vehicles.
Part of the tax on gasoline kind is kind of justified because we need to spend so much money dealing with them. With coal, their are not really a lot of pirates and terrorist regimes between the Black Powder Basin in Wyoming and your local clean coal power plant.
The people cheering EVs are the same people who would ban coal, so don’t try to tell us how great coal is for generating power for EVs.
And the “waste” ICE vehicle heat you complain about, keeps us ICE drivers warm in the winter, where EV drivers have to use some of their battery power to run a resistance heater or heat pump to keep passengers warm and defrost windows. Battery power that is very valuable in the winter, as cold temps makes EV batteries less efficient, robbing EV users of even more of their limited range.
I do not own an electric vehicle, and at present, I have no desire to own one until they have all the use benefits of their gasoline-powered counterparts.
That said, I would not justify this new few with any sort of claim that those subject to the fee can afford it.
Also, as the gas tax is based on consumption/gas purchases, those who drive their gasoline-powered vehicles are paying in proportion to their use of the roads. This new fee on electric vehicles, as a flat fee, would not necessarily reflect such use of the roads. For some, it might be an undercharge and for others, an overcharge.
The fee is roughly equal to the tax paid via gas on a similar sized vehicle driving the US average of 13k miles a year. Yes, might be a bit less for some and a bit more for others. However, that is preferable IMHO to tracking mileage.
Lets start withe the fact all mo ey is governments in leftists eyes. So how long did you think it was going to be before they found they were losing revenue and force you to pay. Its what the left does.
Just don’t get your tears all over the check and smudge the ink. We wouldn’t want you paying more after all.
I like the way you think.
It’s a bit much to aver that the great EV experiment is collapsing when the Tesla Model Y continues to be the number one or two best selling vehicle in the world. That said, I am all for the road use tax.
And, from what I’m seeing on the roads here in the Tucson area, Hyundai and Kia sell a lot of EVs as well.
Certainly here in my suburban nook in Dallas we have a notable number of EV’s, the vast majority of which are Teslas. On a recent trip to another neighborhood – a trip of about 12 miles round trip- I counted 11 Tesla’s, one Rivian, and one Hyundai. Beyond that my neighbor a few houses away owns a very nice Mercedes EV.
They work just fine in this particular environment. Having said that, EV’s will remain niche vehicles for the affluent, and the affluent should pay road taxes; I’m agnostic as to what the correct amount might be.
On a tangential note, I just paid my annual “Burglar Alarm Response Fee” to the city. This makes me wonder if there should be an “EV Owners Accident Response Fee” because police and fire departments require so much special equipment and additional personnel time to respond to EV fires. Note that I mean an annual fee paid by all registered EV owners to the city to build a fund and NOT an after-the-fact individual charge because of an accident.
Just a thought which may mention to our local city council.
The amount should be equivalent to the gas tax for a comparable ICE vehicle. The tax is not for gas but for road use.
I have owned EV’s for over 5 years now. Yes, I did take the subsidies as I am not insane enough to walk away from money left on the table in front of me. OTOH, I tell folks who ask that it would be better if the G did not subsidize EV’s. I also think that the choice of vehicle propulsion is a personal matter. If you like EV’s then by all means get one. If you like gas powered vehicles, then by all means you should be able to get one without being held up to shame. My wife and I have one of each. She likes the gas vehicle, and I (as a geek) like my EV.
There is lots of FUD out there, most of which is probably put forth by folks who do not understand the laws of physics. The same laws generally apply to EV’s as well as gas powered vehicles. Do jackrabbit starts and you will wear your tires out quickly. AFA road wear, my Tesla weighs probably a bit less than a Tahoe or Escalade of that type of vehicle. Ask any road design engineer and he or she will tell you that the major cause of road wear is trucks. So the wear is somewhat proportional to weight.
AFA the surcharges, they are not soundly based on actual results. I am in the PDRNJ which is now charging a flat annual surcharge of $250, which is planned to increase each year by $10 until it hits $290. It bears no relation to miles driven. My calculation is that the tax on a gallon of gasoline in the PDRNJ comes to roughly .02/mile for a gas vehicle that gets 20 MPG.
I am 75, retired and drive maybe 3-4000 miles per year. So this surcharge would amount to about .06 to .08 per mile. this is quite a bit more than the gas powered vehicle would pay. The way ti works out is that the person who drives a lot can even get a better road tax deal than the little old lady who drives to church and to the store.
So yes, I do support the idea that EV’s should not get a free ride on road taxes, but they should not pay more than an equivalent weight gas powered vehicle. The way this should be done is that a per mile tax figure should be set forth for the different weight classes. The odometer can be read by the inspection station every year and the tax could be paid for actual use. No, not perfect, but it removes the “penalty” put on low usage drivers.
Haven’t seen too many EVs here in Alabama. Folks around here don’t seem to miss them.
Which Model Y; the old discontinued one, or the New, Improved one?
Do heavier cars cause more road damage?
Passenger cars? Probably not all that much more than smaller vehicles. Damage mostly comes from commercial vehicles far heavier weight. The ‘big rig’ trucks and trailers get hit with higher registration fees based on GVWR gross vehicle weight rating or GCWR gross combined weight rating. Some States use one system some the other. The difference is a separate additional registration fee for the trailer when using GVWR. The trailer registration fees vary widely. In Bama its $20 per year regardless of size of trailer. Some States have one time per owner registration, Arizona fee is $800.
Commercial vehicles also get hit with a Federal Excises tax on tires rated above 3500 pounds. Its something like 9.5 cents per 10 lb of capacity rating over 3500 lb. A semi might be hit for $500 for tires just on this excise tax. Then they also pay excise tax on the large amount of fuel used.
Bottom line is EV are heavier than many comparable passenger vehicles and have avoided paying the ‘user fee’ of fuel tax. The whining from that quarter is ridiculous, especially in context of massive govt subsidies provided.
In aggregate, I believe they do cause more damage. It’s not a linear graph but there is a positive correlation.
Sure I agree, the EV does cause more damage but not all that much more than a normal IC engine vehicle.. For base models a Tesla Model Y weighs about 4100 lbs and Cadillac CT4 weighs about 3500 lbs. That 600 lbs difference isn’t pushing the damage much, especially if we could capture accurate data to consider the difference in miles actually driven for the IC vehicle v EV vehicle.
If EV’s were the majority of vehicles on the roads, I would guess yes; studies have shown that present day multi level parking structures cannot support the extra load limit of EV’s, over a certain number, in any particular structure.
Whether individually or as a class, the heavier vehicle will cause greater road wear than the lighter. The degree of damage to the road surface will vary with the number of such vehicles, but each vehicle will contribute increased wear.
The most common form of “damage” to a roadway is routine wear caused by the road pressure of vehicles traveling over them. Road pressure is determined by the weight, speed, tire contact patch size, and load distribution. With many EV passenger cars weighing 4-5,000 pounds and Toyota Corolla- historically one of the top 10 best selling ICE cars in the US- weighing approximately 3,000 pounds a typical EV passenger car could cause 25-50% more wear than a typical EV pass car depending road age and engineering and habits of the individual driver. Additionally, degradation of existing defects of the roadway to include potholes, paving seams, patches, etc. will be proportionally exacerbated according to said road pressure which is why commercial trucks, construction equipment, and heavy trailers are expected to increase damage. While the variables of different roads and vehicles vary greatly in general, Yes- vehicles with heavier road pressure of any type typically increase road wear/damage over a given time than those with lighter road pressure.
Yes, they do. The rule is that the damage done over time is directly proportional to the weight of the vehicle raised to the fourth power. Of course, eighteen-wheelers weigh much more than any EV. However, I believe this is another reason that EV’s aren’t worth the trouble.
I know heavier women do
If you want to answer that question just take a look at the roadways in states that use studded snow tires. Those lanes show wear from these tires on just about every roadway, heavier vehicles creating more wear than the lighter ones. Here in Alabama EV owners pay road use tax when they register their vehicles, but it is significantly less than most folks pay at the pump and much of that money is directed to EV infrastructure (more chargers). It’s time EV drivers pay their fair share of road use taxes in every state.
Frankly, I would rather the road use tax / federal fuel tax be lowered for all people.
It is clear that the Congress cannot get spending and priorities under control and so the solution to wanting more stuff is to raise taxes. (And make no mistake, a higher fuel tax will be coming down the line so all Americans can suffer the same.)
The current proposed 1000 page BUILD America 250 Act does have some good ideas, such as streamlining environmental impact studies for new road projects. but it also contains provisions for studies of the snacks served on Amtrak trains under the “Make America Healthy” guidelines. Amtrak has a $48 billion dollar repair backlog, but let’s mandate studies on snacks and veggies on the trains. The bill also requires that any company with over 800 square feet allow commercial delivery drivers access to bathrooms. It also requires a study on the yellow paint used on roadways.
What these provisions have to do with roads and bridges is a mystery.
The Highway Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2028 unless Congress did something.
Instead of looking at every spending item, they added more spending and so they had to increase taxes.
Congress can’t get past spending like drunken sailors and that is the real issue.
The left: If it moves tax it. If it doesn’t move, tax it more.
Also the left: just not electric cars!!
One Huge issue the EV crowd always ignored was the electrical grid. If even half the cars in a typical neighborhood switched to EVs the power grid would fail. No one ever solved the problem apartment buildings have with over night recharging of the resident’s autos. There is no “Gallon can of gas” with EVs and they must be towed at big expenses. Then there is the killer warning, “Don’t charge it in your garage over night”, because of fire. No thanks!
socialism doesnt work
thats why mamdummi is putting private businesses in charge of his grocery stores…also so they can take the blame if/when the failures occur, capitalism will once again be the culprit
“Albert Gore III, the son of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore,…”
Good grief. God’s Holy Trousers. You mean this insanity won’t go away when the old green grifter is finally composted??
As Thomas Sowell queries, what next? And that is where the downstream impacts/costs of implementing anything lie, which none dare address as it would kill the current edition of the “golden goose.”
While the weight of the EV is heavier, it does add a small impact to the estimated life of asphalt concrete pavements. The larger impact is 1) the cost to upgrade every fire department’s investment in personnel training and equipment to handle fires from crash, 2) disposal/replacement costs of the damaged vehicle that increases everyone’s insurance (since that is how insurance works), and 3) the government’s eventual need to fix guardrails designed for a higher center of mass internal combustion engine vehicles compared to the lower center of mass of EV’s (which the personal injury lawyers will feed on the Federal government until the problem is “fixed”).
It is easier to kick these costs down the road to be shoulder by others, rather than make decisions based in fact. To believe that folk cannot make these “crystal ball” projections is infantile.
Limbaugh’s expression about the drive-by-media was spot on and in my opinion applicable to the entire system we live in.
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One of the best things about EVs is that your adult children, who buy them to save money on gas and maintenance, end up with extra free time. They often call more, usually from charging stations while they wait in their cars with nothing else to do.
While the rest of the marketplace collapses, Tesla is doing pretty well and nobody is force-feeding those vehicles down anyone’s throat.
I am always amused when the stated excuse for new taxes is paying one’s fair share. Example this time around is extending the new tax to hybrids, which use internal batteries to extend mileage. What’s next? Levying similar taxes on high mpg vehicles? Cheers –
This is somewhat true. Tesla new car sales are doing well. But the problem is the used Tesla market. Right now the average American keeps their car a little over 9.6 years. Tesla batteries start to greatly degrade at 5 years, requiring a new battery pack. At this point in time, a battery pack for a Tesla is between $12,ooo and $25,ooo, depending on the model. New Tesla owners are getting rid of their Teslas rather than replace the battery packs, What person wants to buy a used Tesla with a multi-thousand dollar repair bill in a couple of years?
Why yes……that is exactly what will happen. Several states are already looking into taxes based on mileage (a Vehicle Mileage Tax or VMT.) Since fuel taxes are based on fuel used, and high mileage vehicles use less fuel, the states have to make up the difference somehow. Charging for mileage is one way of doing it. California actually had a proposal for progressive taxing based on the distance traveled. So people who buy high MPG cars because they travel more will get taxed more. (Of course, you also have the whole thing of the government essentially “spying” on you for traveling.)
This whole discussion is not about cars and their propulsion units.
It is about tax revenues.
The government (state and federal) gave incentives for people to by EV’s and when that dried up the tax revenues because no fuel tax on EV’s the government wants the money they said you would save by buying an EV.
It was a sales pitch based on a lie and lack of basic economics by the government(s.)
Go figure.
Government shot itself in the foot when it started mandating vehicle gas mileage goals. Less gas burned per mile means less tax collected at the pump. Although actual revenues may now be higher than decades ago due to an increase in the number of vehicles on the road, those same vehicles would be producing more revenue if they were still only getting 12 mpg.
Eventually a miles driven tax will be imposed. Hopefully thru will eliminate gas taxes but knowing how they probably not.
They’ll mandate built-in widgets that will report your miles driven.
Cross their hearts and hope to die, those widgets will never be used to record the routes you drive and places at which you stop.
The easiest way to do this is just record the odometer once a year or when transferring a car. So it may not be exact. It’s close enough for government work.
…those widgets will never be used to record the routes you drive and places at which you stop.
My car already does that, on its own. I have a 2024 5 Series. I discovered that it monitors my travels when one day I pulled up to the drop-off mailbox at my local postoffice and the car displayed a message (paraphrasing here) You come here often and open the window. Do you want the car to automatically open the driver’s window as you approach? I believe the intended use is for people who park in a garage for work where they must swipe a badge as they enter. A nice feature until you realize that Big Brother is not only watching you, he’s remembering.
EV’s are much heavier than ICE cars, causing more wear on road services, so they should be paying far more than regular cars. They also produce far more air pollution with their inefficient dependence on offsite electricity production.
Reminds me of when the internet was young and the libs – in between whining about billionaires paying their fair share – would brag about not paying sales tax on stuff they bought through the internet.
And heaven forbid you bring up they were skipping their fair share of taxes.
Iceland has recently introduced a distance-based road tax system, where vehicles are charged according to the number of kilometres driven rather than through fuel taxes.
New Zealand has operated a similar system for diesel vehicles for many years. Diesel fuel is taxed less heavily at the pump, but diesel vehicle owners must pay Road User Charges (RUC). These charges are prepaid in 1,000 km increments, traditionally displayed as a licence label or “sticker” in the vehicle.
The Illinois press has reported that the enlightened Illinois legislators have considered doing this.
And since our “road funds” are now being used to convert road lanes into “bicycle lanes,” how about annual tax/license fees for bicycle owners?
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