View Public Input on TCI-P

No, this is a terrible idea. One former EPA veteran said of this plan, “In sum, TCI has no environmental benefits but would cost Virginians billions of dollars. That is an ‘all pain and no gain’ program." No thanks!

This seems like a terrible idea to me and will only serve to punish average citizens who do not want nor can they afford an electric vehicle. My job is 5 miles north, my kids go to school 10 miles east and my husband works 50 miles away in DC. How exactly is increased transit going to efficiently and effectively deliver us all where we need to be? It won't, and the increased tax to purchase gasoline due to the TCI will be a huge burden to my family and others like us. The worst part is that the science is clear that electric vehicles are not the environmental panacea that the media would have us believe. They are carbon-intensive to produce and leave behind toxic used batteries. The most disgusting part of this is that it will yield so little positive impacts and seems to be just be yet another government overreach intended to control the way people live and take away any sort of individual decision-making.

Please don’t add this tax. We cannot afford a program that yields virtually no benefit.

According to the International Energy Agency’s May 2019 Global Electric
Vehicle Outlook, EVs start out with a carbon deficit due to the amount of pollutants
released. However, the Electrical Vehicle (EV) manufacturing process—including mining of rare earth metals
for batteries— actually produces greater carbon emissions than the production of manufacturing
internal combustion vehicles. Depending on the source of electricity they use, the EV
can take years to break even on the carbon front, not to mention the still unsolved
problem of how to safely dispose of the toxic battery.
In addition, a recent study by the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Institute for
Public Policy estimated that this “carbon tax” would reduce the current revenue
needed by the commonwealth for road maintenance about 20 percent by 2022.

To raise gasoline prices to pay for some initiative that would only diminish the carbon foot print by a tiny-winy amount compared to sticking it to the middle class again is unfair. Electric cars are a wave of the future and beyond. Do not burden other people to pay for your progress. If you can't make it on your own then go back to the drawing board and figure it out without sticking it to someone else.

We need more money for the roads repair.

NOT an increase In. gas taxes

DO NOT JOIN TCI.

We should take steps to be better stewards of the environment, but the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) is not an effective way to do that. The TCI would increase gas taxes to pay for corporate welfare handouts for favored industries and is not responsible public policy.

Our goal should be to remove barriers to innovation and empower people in communities and business to be better stewards of the environment. Subjecting consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs to taxes, mandates, and regulations will undermine the kind of ingenuity needed to achieve that goal.

Even if Virginia enters the TCI, the effect on transportation emissions would be negligible. In 2017, emissions from the transportation sector in Virginia were 15% lower than their peak in 2006. And even TCI proponents acknowledge that transportation-related emissions are set to decline an additional 19% in the TCI region without their regressive tax. Private sector innovation unhindered by government intervention and red tape is the better path forward to keep reducing our emissions.

TCI sounds nice, but won't work while hurting poor families and taking money from road repair.