WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- The White House Friday shot down a suggestion by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to tax motor vehicle mileage rather than gasoline.
LaHood had said gasoline taxes were not sufficient to cover the cost of highway construction and repair, and he was looking into taxing mileage as an alternative to gas taxes. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday President Obama does not support a mileage tax.
"I can weigh in on it, and say that it is not, and will not be the policy of the Obama administration," Gibbs said.
Taxing mileage would require using Global Positioning Satellite tracking devices in vehicles. It has proven successful in test in Oregon, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The state used a $2.1 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration in 2006 to equip two service stations to read mileage. Volunteers allowed their vehicles to be equipped with GPS devices that could track mileage but not the vehicle owners' whereabouts.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski last month recommended that the state become less reliant on gasoline taxes as a major source of transportation funding, the newspaper said.
James Whitty, manager of Oregon's Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding, acknowledged people have a "visceral" reaction to the prospect of taxing mileage, but he said such a system is inevitable.
"We have to recognize that we need to move to a new system," he told the Times, "one that is the most efficient and most acceptable to the consumer."
