Ebbin, Surovell Seek to Repeal Virginia Hybrid Tax

State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-30th) and Del. Scott Surovell (D-44th) will present legislation on the first day of the 2014 session of the General Assembly to repeal the Virginia hybrid tax.

The legislators made the announcement at a press conference Monday—the day the tax took effect—in front of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office on Mill Road in Alexandria and were joined by hybrid drivers and members of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

“People felt like this was a tax on virtue,” Surovell said. “It was a tax on people for doing the right thing [by lowering emissions]. We had people asking questions, ‘Are we going to start taxing vegetables?’”

The annual fee was first attached to Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation bill, where it was rejected by the house and senate. It ultimately came out of a conference committee “for some reason which was never fully explained” and then presented as “a take it or leave it proposition,” Surovell said.

McDonnell (R) reasoned hybrid vehicles use the roadways as much as gasoline-powered vehicles but are paying less of the gas tax because they’re fueling up fewer times. Ebbin and Surovell delivered a petition to the governor asking him to throw out the tax.

“The punitive annual hybrid tax was not well thought out and hastily passed,” Ebbin said.

The fee was knocked down to $64 from an initially suggested $100 tax.

Ebbin and Surovell said the tax unfairly impacts Northern Virginia. 

Surovell said 82 percent of the state’s 9,000 hybrid vehicles are registered in Northern Virginia. That hybrid tax money will go into a statewide transportation fund. There are about 7 million vehicles registered in Virginia, Surovell said.    

“I think going forward we have a very good chance of repealing it,” Surovell said, adding that members of the General Assembly told him they would not have voted for the measure on its own.