LANSING – The Michigan Petroleum Association/Michigan Association of Convenience Stores is calling on the Legislature not to pass a series of bills backed by road building and various business groups that they say would mean Michigan drivers would pay the highest fuel taxes in the country.
Should HB 4575 , HB 4577 , HB 6749 , HB 6750 and HB 6752 become law, motorists could pay an additional $1.5 billion for gasoline and diesel fuel, Mark Griffin, president of the association, said in a memo sent to all members of the Legislature.
In addition, Griffin said the idea of basing fuel taxes on the wholesale cost of gasoline and diesel fuel, instead the retail price as currently done, will create a system “so complex and cumbersome, no one who will have to implement it or use can explain it without charts, graphs, pictures and maybe divine intervention.”
The bills passed the House last week as shell measures in hopes that some agreement could be reached on making changes to the transportation funding system in hopes of adding more money for road repairs, public transit and other systems.
The House acted after a special committee that included legislators and the public issued recommendations last month that the state needed more funding for transportation purposes.
But in the memo Griffin said there are other options to road funding than fuel taxes.
“We agree that solutions to solving Michigan’s road funding problems are needed. However we object to making gasoline and diesel fuel more expensive and more complex to collect,” he said.
Among the other options he suggested was eliminating gasoline and diesel taxes altogether and increasing the state sales tax with the increase dedicated to roads.
Simply increasing fuel taxes by whatever means will hurt gas station owners and fuel wholesalers, Griffin said. “We hope you realize Michigan’s economy is in much worse shape than its roads,” he wrote.
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