CHANGE: Obama Floats Plan To Tax Cars By The Mile:

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

The plan is a part of the administration’s “Transportation Opportunities Act,” an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.

This follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

No privacy issues there. I had some thoughts on that here.

UPDATE: Reader Brian Trosko writes: “The gas tax makes much more sense than a mileage tax, without the privacy implications, *until* revenues start collapsing because everyone switches to hybrids or EVs that don’t use as much gas. Then you still need a way to raise revenues, which is probably what they’re desperate about.” Well, that’s a long way off unless they know something about gas prices that I don’t. Uh oh. . . .