Senate Transportation Committee weighs mileage-based user fee pilot for electric vehicles as funding, privacy and timeline remain unsettled

The Senate Transportation Committee on April 1 heard agency testimony and member questions on a proposed mileage-based user fee (MBUF) pilot aimed at electric vehicles, the state's transportation funding outlook and the funding and timeline needed to start work.

Vermont Agency of Transportation representative Patrick Murphy told the committee the agency's 10-year unconstrained needs analysis is intended to show an order of magnitude for system needs rather than a proposed budget. He said the study's assumptions include roughly 3 percent general inflation and about 5 percent construction inflation, and that the unconstrained gap figure cited in the study—about $317,000,000 beginning in fiscal 2026—describes needs under no budget constraints rather than a dollar-for-dollar shortfall the state must immediately fill.

The funding shortfall and the state's shift toward electric vehicles were presented as the primary rationale for considering a mileage-based user fee. Agency staff told the committee that indexing the gas tax would slow decline in revenue but not stop the long-term loss of purchasing power as vehicles electrify; by contrast, an MBUF charges by miles driven and, the agency said, can be designed to spread burdens differently across income and geographic groups.

Committee members raised three recurring issues: equity, privacy…