But implementation is years away

Oregon's idea of a mileage tax to replace the gas tax is years away from becoming reality, if it ever does.

That's apparent from the process the state is following in developing the idea and carrying it forward.

In 2001, the legislature authorized a road user fee task force to look for alternatives to the gas tax. In 2006 and 2007, the task force tested a mileage tax that made use of global positioning system technology.

Now the governor has included $10 million - $5 million per year - in his 2009-2011 budget to take the next step.

James Whitty, manager of ODOT's Office of Innovative Partnerships, says that step goes like this:

If the legislature approves the money, ODOT this fall will put out a request for proposals. It will be looking for a major technology company with experience in this field to contract to refine a system to collect a mileage tax.

That process, Whitty estimates, would probably take a couple of years.

Then it would be up to Oregon's legislature, other states or the federal government to decide whether to put such a system into effect.

One of the aspects of the whole idea that needs perfecting, Whitty says, is how to transfer mileage information from vehicles to devices that record the readings and collect the tax.

Mileage traveled would be recorded by odometers, as now. The GPS would be used to tell vehicle devices when to record mileage for tax purposes. State tax, for example, would not be collected on mileage driven outside the state or on private roads.

The Democrat-Herald interviewed Whitty about the status of the project on Tuesday. An update report on the mileage tax in the D-H had appeared in the Sunday paper Dec. 28, generating some heated online comments from around the country.

The system would need the cooperation of the automobile industry, which would have to install new devices in vehicles. For that reason, Whitty says, it probably can't be put into effect by Oregon alone. Instead, it would have to be started by a combination of states or by Congress.

Whitty notes that a GPS-based system to keep track of commercial trucks is already in use in Germany, but Oregon is not interested in anything like that because it doesn't want to track where vehicles go, just how far they drive within the state.