Albert Gore III, the son of former VP Gore, serves as the Executive Director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association and is unhappy with this development.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
Regular Legal Insurrection readers will recall that I have been tracking the slow-motion collapse of the great electric vehicle experiment for years.
I reported on the Biden administration’s laughably failed promise on tens of thousands of charging stations.
Blue states slammed the brakes on California-style EV mandates once the math simply stopped computing, while Ford took a staggering $19.5 billion hit as it zapped production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning.
Finally, there was a serious market reckoning that saw EV registrations plunge 41% ry after federal tax credits were finally yanked.
In short: the government picked a winner, forced it on the American people, and the American people said: “No, thank you.”
Now, with EV ownership having been subsidized, mandated, and cheered by the green-energy zealots for the better part of a decade, Congress has decided that EV drivers ought to start paying for the roads they use, which is something every gasoline driver has quietly done at the pump all along.
As my colleague Mary Castain noted earlier this week, bipartisan House legislation introduced this week would impose a $130 annual fee on electric vehicle owners and a $35 fee on plug-in hybrid drivers, rising incrementally to $150 and $50, respectively, with the revenue directed at the Highway Trust Fund.
I think Legal Insurrection readers will be shocked to discover green energy advocates are deeply unhappy with this potential new rule.
Albert Gore III, the son of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, serves as the Executive Director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA). He is unhappy with this development.
But auto industry and environmental groups said the fee was substantially higher than the average fuel taxes paid by owners of gasoline cars. All electric vehicle owners would pay the same flat rate, whereas owners of vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel pay more if they drive more.
The fees make it harder for people to escape soaring fuel prices by buying an electric vehicle, said Albert Gore III, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, an industry group whose members include Tesla, Rivian and Lucid. His group estimated that most Americans paid $73 to $89 a year in federal fuel taxes.
Sales of used electric vehicles, which cost about the same to buy as similar gasoline-powered vehicles, have soared after the war in Iran raised fuel prices about 50 percent.
“This unduly penalizes people for making that choice,” Mr. Gore said. “I don’t argue that the number should be zero, but the number should be fair.”
Zero Emission Transportation Association’s Executive Director Albert Gore bashes the $130 EV fee proposed in the highway bill as “a punitive tax that would disproportionately impact adopters of electric vehicles, with no meaningful impact on maintaining the HTF.”
— Chris Marquette (@ChrisMarquette_) May 18, 2026
Ironically, the peril is so great to the green energy cultists that they are now complaining about affordability and have prices. This complaint comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
“This legislation is a punch in the gut to the millions of Americans struggling to pay higher prices at the pump.
“With Americans demanding more affordable transportation options as gasoline tops $4.50 a gallon this bill would impose an onerous new fee on electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, while slashing investments in new EV chargers.
Hot Air’s Beege Welborne takes issue with how the elite media are presenting this development:
I love the verbiage: EV drivers could be FORCED to pay.
Oh, really? Nothing like what American taxpayers were FORCED to pay to develop and manufacture these things, not to mention finance the handsome subsidies to both the car companies and the consumer to get someone – ANYONE to buy the damn things.
And now we’re going to whine about having a yearly, tiny little $10 or so a month fee after all the bragging about not paying for gas, ete. that these insufferable snots do?
Gas taxes pay for the roads EVs drive on that EVs do not and have never paid for.
What we are witnessing isn’t some great injustice visited upon virtuous EV owners, but an overdue collision with economic reality.
After years of subsidies, mandates, media cheerleading, and regulatory muscle-flexing, the bill has finally come due. Suddenly, the same crowd that insisted EVs were the inevitable future is aghast at the notion of paying a modest share for the infrastructure they use.
The irony is rich: the “fair share” rhetoric cuts both ways, and now that it does, the enthusiasm for it is fading fast.
It turns out Americans weren’t rejecting EVs out of ignorance or obstinacy. Rather, they were rejecting a top-down experiment that never made practical or financial sense.
We will see if the proposal is actually passed by the US Senate, which tends not to support matters that are practical or fiscally sensible.
Oh no. I thought we would eventually see the last of Al Gore.
The Gores are the gift that keeps on giving-like herpes, and about as much fun. Oh, well.
The Gores are the
giftgrift that keeps ongivingtaking. Oh, well.Dang! Beat me!
More like the grift that keeps on taking.
It’s a Dynasty!
Back in the Day when Dynasty was on TV we had a game. Every time one of the cast had a drink, the viewer did too. Empirically, a good boozy half hour.
I think it was an hour show. Maybe you just didn’t remember…
Given the game he was playing, that’s not surprising.
The man has grown so large his shadow alone could stop global warming.
I call him “Fat Albert.”
I think that flat fee is too low personally.
EVs are far heavier than equivalent ICE vehicles and thereby do more damage to roads and related infrastructure, like bridges.
Long overdue for their ‘free ride’ to come to an end.
Oh, and they should pay additional fees for the added grid infrastructure that would be needed to support the mass adoption of them that their cheerleaders fantasize about.
$200 per year is nothing in overall annual vehicle expenses.
Have a 2020 Honda CRV hybrid. Wife’s choice.
Gets about 10 mpg better mileage than my all gas 2015 CRV.
Reak shock will come in replacing/disposing battery pack.
I saw a video the other day day showing the replacement of a hybrid SUV battery pack.
The battery pack was located beneath the front-row passenger seats and was said to weigh 186 pounds.
It looked like a fairly easy, straight-forward swap.
I don’t know what the replacement battery cost.
It looked simple enough for a do-it-yourself project.
Honda dealership will charge ~$3500 for OEM battery and $1000 labor. One could save via non-OEM or used battery and taking it to an independent garage. It requires specialized tooling and knowledge, so probably not a good DIY project for most.
If you can afford to buy an EV, you can afford $130 per year.
Also, there is talk of suspending the federal gas tax while gasoline prices are high. This amounts to about 18 cents per gallon, which is a very small amount that will have little effect on the average driver’s budget. I presume this effort is by politicians who want to appear to be doing something about prices.
The gasoline prices will decline shortly, as Trump opens the Strait of Hormuz, and the prices will decline a lot more than 18 cents per gallon.
And always keep things in perspective: Gasoline prices were a lot higher during Biden’s term and Americans did just fine, because prices eventually came back down, just like they will this time.
You are being told the situation is a lot worse than it really is by the News Media, including Fox News not putting things in proper perspective, never mentioning Biden’s higher prices, and showing pictures of California gas station prices as representative of the whole nation when California’s gasoline prices are a dollar and more per gallon than the rest of the nation.
Is it any surprise that there are a lot of confused people out there?
There is a lot of disinformation flying around.
Yeah, and as the old saying goes, “Talk is cheap.”
And finding that one station that has prices $3/g higher than average Kali prices. Out here in the Mojave outback (AKA middle of nowhere) regular has been $5.60ish.
California and WA state could suspend their gas taxes too (which for WA would be at least $1 per gallon less). But then they wouldn’t have a cudgel to beat Trump with.
closer to a buck-fifty. or more if you get rid of both the state sales taxes and the “carbon tax” or whatever they call it.
WA State has the Climate Commitment Act that adds {one estimate} 68¢/gal. State tax for gasoline in WA is 0.554¢. This will go up 2% on July 1 to 0.564¢. This week local pump price is about $5.35, lower than in Puget Sound.
A very stale and tired Retro Bagel, or is that Bear Leg Rot?
Are the Gores the number one climate dynasty?
Why should everyone else pay for rich guys virtue signalling?
Because… they say so.
In addition to the Federal gas tax, there are also State taxes. They range from $.09 to $0.60 per gallon. The average is about $0.52 per gallon among all 50 states. According to Google, the average car in the US gets about 26 mpg and is driven an average of 13,500 miles per year. At a total average fuel tax of $0.52/gallon, that works out to an annual gas tax of about $270/year actually paid by ICE owners, not $73 to $89 claimed by Al. (Why is it that Democrats have so much trouble with arithmetic?) In addition EVs typically weight much more than ICE cars so they wear more on the roads, increasing maintenance costs. So it seems that perhaps $300/year would be a fair EV tax rate rather than the current $0 Al thinks is “fair.” Alternately, there is technology today that could track the mileage of each EV running on our roads and tax at a rate based on $/mile/ton of mass. Would Al prefer that?
Thanks you saved me the trouble of working out the sums. Amazing about how nobody ever tries arithmetic before going to defcon 1*.
Note: https://www.defconlevel.com/
The EV’s addition weight also causes their tires to wear out much sooner than ICE cars. A “hidden tax.”
Specific-victim taxes like alcohol, tobacco, toll roads, and EV taxes are a great way to get any 80% to oppose any 20%. Should I _really_ believe the dollar amount collected will support only road projects? Should I _really_ believe the congressmen have not already budgeted twice as much new road project spending as the expected collections before the bill passes?
All revenue goes to the general fund. All temporary revenue generation schemes are permanent.
“In short: the government picked a winner, forced it on the American people, and the American people said: “No, thank you.””
I distinctly remember different words being used.
Perhaps it would be more palatable if the fee were weight-based. The average weight of an E-passenger car is 6,042 lbs. So $0.02 per pound. A Mazda MX-30 would be $92 per year. A Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV would be $149. Trucks would be more.
Since EVs weigh more than ICE vehicles, their wear and tear on the roads and bridges is more. (Source: https://readysetrev.com/how-much-do-electric-vehicles-weigh)
Having never used nor seen such a thing, the top image is, I assume, of a gizmo used in the electrical lineage to charge a battery in an electrical vehicle.
Do they all look like this or are there variations, somewhat like the difference between a 2-prong and a 3-prong household appliance or tool?
Notice that the insulator is made from plastic, which is derived from crude oil.
Unlike California, where the government picks all winners, and the Californians say “Can we have some more, please?
But of course, being only one of fifty states, people that disagree can still vote with their feet as is now happening.
Call it an impact fee for what they took out of the tax base with their hefty tax credits.
AG III, Al Gore’s son, has inherited his pop’s propensity to lie about everything. He says, “Sales of used electric vehicles, which cost about the same to buy as similar gasoline-powered vehicles, have soared after the war in Iran raised fuel prices about 50 percent.. “
In an apples-to-apples comparison of new IC versus EV retail prices (comparably sized and equipped), new EVs cost 60 to 100% more than new IC vehicles. Comparing used vehicle prices is disingenuous because the resale value of EVs plummets.
Leftist activists are always keen on people paying their “fair share.” According to DuckAI, fleetwide average annual cost paid for federal fuel excise taxes is about $95 per year, which is greater than their claimed range of $73-$89 per year. In addition, the 18.1 cents per gallon federal fuel excise tax was set in 2010 and has not been adjusted for inflation. Using inflation adjusted pricing, the annual federal excise tax per average fleet vehicle should be $220. I am not advocating for fuel taxes to increase this much, but the EV advocates are getting a real bargain at $120 per year. (by the way, California, which has some of the highest state fuel taxes, should be charging EV owners about $375/yr to make up for lost fuel tax revenue.)
This does not take into account the disproportionate roadway wear and tear caused by EVs, which weigh about 1000 pounds more than their IC counterparts. In addition, it has been found that conventional highway guardrails cannot properly deflect, cushion and containing crashing EVs. Highway researchers are seeking new designs to accommodate EVs. Retrofitting the thousands of miles road and highway guard rails and crash barriers cost many billions of dollars.
Notice the wide tyres on the Tesla in front of you? High power? Zero to sixty in 3.3 seconds?
Nope. All that battery weighs a tonne, and cause EXTRA wear on the road. Pay for it.
For the record US Federal Government imposes a road use tax of 51¢/gal on gasoline while California imposes (State and Federal taxes combined) A road use tax of 90¢/gal on gas.
Federal road use taxes an average of 575 gallons per year at $.51 for an annual fee of $293.25.
California road use taxes an average of 460 gallons/year at $.90 for an annual fee of $414.
It’s definitely time heavier EVs pay their way and to the tune of $293.25 min per year like ICVs do. They should likely pay more since their weight does more damage over time.
“US Federal Government imposes a road use tax of 51¢/gal“
I find “18.4 cents per gallon”, not 51¢. What am I missing?
It was the Combined Federal road use tax combined with the Average State road use tax of 33¢/gal. Intended but misstated. Thanks for catching that😉
Damn right that they should be taxed. After all, didn’t they benefit in many cases from subsidies and don’t the frequently heavier EVs put more pressure on roads, bridges and overpasses?Besides, if they can afford the higher prices of these machines to begin with, they shouldn’t mind the taxes either.
The UK has encountered the same problem and has adopted a plausible solution. The problem is that if people no longer buy gasoline, the tax revenue vanishes. The solution is to charge EV and PHEV drivers per mile driven.
As you think through implementation one or two difficulties come to mind. How do you track the mileage?
Simple, every car over three years old is obliged to have a Ministry of Transport examination once a year, Without an MOT certificate it cannot be licensed, then cannot be insured, so it will have to come off the road. So the proposal is that mileage will be estimated by the driver, paid in advance, and then verified at the MOT. Cars less than three years old would have to have mileage verified annually (probably by an MOT station) to get licensed.
This of course gives a great incentive for odometer fraud. So far there is no proposal for using number plate recognition or other tracking to enforce the mileage estimates. It would be a huge project, but it would probably only use the same mass of surveillance information that is generated by number plate recognition cameras already, so is probably an inevitable development.
Then there’s the question of selling cars privately. They will be sold with a certain mileage debt due. Does this mean certificiation before sale?
There’s also an equity problem with PHEVs. What if they are driven almost all their miles on gas? They are still charged per mile (at a lower rate than EVs) as if all their miles were electric. The answer to this is probably tough, don’t buy a hybrid if you don’t like it.
Well, charge per mile is something tax specialists have advocated for some time and its probably an inevitable by product of any move to EVs in the UK and maybe EU. The proposal in the piece, a simple annual charge, maybe in bands proportional to vehicle weight, is a lot simpler but it does risk discouraging takeup.
EV’s should pay road taxes similar to their ICE cousins, and the government has rightly reduced or stopped offering financial incentives to buy them. That said, EV’s are or are becoming a cost effective complement to ICE autos:
EV’s have a place in our transportation mix and i predict they will survive the end of incentives just fine. I don’t own one but as they have dramatically improved in utility they certainly are a tempting local transport option, particularly for ageing drivers who benefit from its safety features.