House committee reviews draft 5.3 of transportation bill; mileage-based fee, EV funding and rail-trail rules draw debate

The House Transportation Committee met March 13 to review draft 5.3 of this year’s transportation bill, taking up changes that included a proposed mileage-based user fee (MBUF) for plug-in vehicles, clarifications to rail-trail hunting and trapping language, and technical statutory edits for transit and town-highway aid.

The session matters because the MBUF and related funding language would shift how drivers — particularly owners of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles — contribute to state transportation revenue, and because uncertainty over federal charging grants (NEVI) affects projects and Vermont vendors that had been preparing construction work.

Committee chair Damien Leonard, legislative counsel, opened the meeting by noting the committee was “looking at draft 5.3 of this year's transportation bill.” Members discussed a number of discrete changes the draft authors flagged and asked agency staff for clarification before the bill is finalized.

Mileage-based user fee and intent language

The committee spent the largest portion of time on the mileage-based user fee (MBUF) provisions in sections 12 and 13. Agency staff said the bill’s operational design envisions odometer readings collected at annual vehicle inspections to produce a mileage measure that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) or Agency of Transportation (AOT) would use to reconcile MBUF charges at registration. Patrick Murphy, Vermont Agency of Transportation, said the reconciliation “would happen at the time of renewing your registration” and that terminating events such as an out‑of‑state sale would trigger an immediate reconciliation with the prior owner.

The draft includes an intent provision directing that the MBUF for a battery-electric pleasure car be approximately equivalent to the amount the state and federal government collect from a comparable internal-combustion vehicle (state and federal gas taxes), and that plug‑in hybrid…