Vehicle Emissions Tax Act Summary

The bill is designed to tax all sources of energy that propel vehicles or power engines, with the gross amount collected being that determined by Congress as necessary to fund federal roads and bridges for the upcoming year. The tax is pro-rated based on cleanliness of the fuel to the environment, not taking account the impacts of creation of the vehicle, with pro-ration based on a fixed distance covered under identical conditions. (Now, there is a tax on gasoline (18.3 cents per gallon) and a tax on diesel fuel, but there is no corresponding tax on electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles.) So, if for a given distance, a purely electric vehicle would (taking into account emissions produced by the power plant in producing the electricity) produced 1/6  the amount of harmful emissions to the environment that gasoline produces, while a natural gas powered vehicle produced ½ the amount of harmful emissions, the tax on the electricity would be 1/6th the tax on gas and the tax on natural gas would be ½ of the tax on gas for the equivalent distance covered (under identical conditions). A completely clean-burning fuel would be tax-free.