مالیات سوخت موتور، حفاظت از انرژی و توسعه اقتصادی: یک رویکرد منطقه ای

Combustion of motor fuels has a variety of environmental impacts on local, regional and global scales. Taxing motor fuels more heavily would mitigate those environmental impacts. However, many governments are reluctant to increase motor fuel taxes because they fear that the tax incidence will be regressive and that economic development will be impeded. Using data for the New England region of the United States, this paper argues that an oil-importing region can conserve energy, avoid regressive impacts and encourage economic development by taxing motor fuels more heavily and rebating the incremental revenues to owners of motor vehicles.

Without doubt, the motor vehicle is central to daily life in the United States. In 2003, the nation's fleet of autos, trucks and buses numbered 231.4 million. There was nearly one auto for every two Americans (FHWA, 2003, Table MV-1). In order to service this vehicle fleet, governments at the federal, state and local levels had constructed 3.97 million miles of public roads by 2003, almost 23.7% of that mileage in urban regions (FHWA, 2003, Table VM-1). This enormous fleet of vehicles and extensive network of streets and highways permits an unprecedented degree of mobility in the contemporary United States. In 2003, vehicles logged 2.89 trillion miles of travel (FHWA, 2003, Table VM-1), the equivalent of more than 6 million round trips between our planet and its moon. Along the way, those vehicles burned 169.6 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuels (FHWA, 2003, Table MF-21). Mobility of people and freight carries a high price tag, however. In 2001, the private cost of operating an automobile (fuel, depreciation, maintenance, etc.) ranged from 20 to 50 cents per mile (Harrington and McConnell, 2003: 21). Of greater relevance to this study are the numerous external costs associated with the nation's dependence on motor vehicles to transport drivers, passengers and cargo. Soil and groundwater contamination from leaking fuel storage tanks is a widespread problem, for example. The US EPA (2005) has confirmed nearly 449 thousand leaks from underground tanks.1

In a recent interview, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency declared that heavy dependence on petroleum to operate an economy “is not a sustainable energy future” (Williams and Bahree, 2005). In a similar fashion, the International Climate Change Taskforce (2005, co-chaired by Senator Olympia Snowe) has bluntly stated, “Governments [should] remove barriers to and increase investment in renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and practices through such measures as the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies….” Although national governments certainly need to take coordinated action to reduce the carbon-intensity of the global economy, governments at the state and regional scale should not hesitate to take action, especially if their economies are heavy net importers of petroleum products. This paper has argued that regional economies like that of New England could enjoy environmental quality improvements, faster job growth and higher real incomes if state governments enacted higher taxes on motor fuels and rebated the incremental tax revenues to motor vehicle owners within their jurisdictions.