Recently passed out of Oregon's Joint Committee On Transportation, HB 2342 is a bill that will mandate a Road Usage Charge on Oregonians that would be paid per-mile driven.

The bill is sponsored by Representative John Lively (D-Springfield) and will be headed next to the Ways and Means Committee for further discussion. The language of the bill proposes the following:

• Imposes mandatory per-mile road usage charge for registered owners and lessees of passenger vehicles of model year 2027 or later that have rating of 30 miles per gallon or greater, beginning July 1, 2026.
• Repeals voluntary per-mile road usage charge on July 1, 2029.
• Allows annual fee in lieu of mandatory per-mile road usage charge, for period beginning on July 1, 2026, and ending on June 30, 2031.
• Sunsets annual fee provisions on January 2, 2032.
• Requires Department of Transportation to submit periodic reports to Road User Fee Task Force about development and implementation of programs.
• Requires department to seek federal funding to better understand interaction of per-mile road usage charges and impact on environment of motor vehicle usage.

Republican legislators and others, including the company Tesla, are opposing the bill, citing several issues with it. Representative Shelly Boshart Davis (R-Albany) has raised additional concerns about the privacy of Oregonians in the future during the Joint Committee On Transportation meeting on May 25th, 2021.


--Bruce Armstrong

Post Date: 2021-05-31 11:43:03

Last Update: 2021-06-05 17:46:34