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I am an economist who came to Olympia to work as a research analyst at the legislature.

The notion of expanding the sales tax to include gasoline is one that I researched in a prior millenium Most of the legal opinion is that would not comply with the state constitution, which requires that excise taxes on motor vehicle fuel be devoted to highway transportation purposes.

I wrote a long thesis on ways around that restriction. The one that the lawyers thought would work was to apply the PROPERTY TAX to roads (an ad-valorem tax that would be paid by the cities, counties, and the state). Then extend the sales tax to gasoline, and use the proceeds to pay the property tax on roads. I thought I was clever. So did most of the lawyers.

But the state came up with a different solution which is, today, doing pretty much the same thing: tax the carbon emissions from the motor vehicle fuel, that pollutes our air. It's a pollution fee. The state now auctions off carbon pollution rights, and the costs for that have been built into the price of gasoline since the beginning of this year. Which is the biggest reason why Fred Meyer and Costco in Spokane charge about seventy cents a gallon more than Fred Meyer and Costco in Coeur d'Alene (about twenty cents of the difference is a lower road tax on the gasoline in Idaho)..

Check this gas price map: https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?fuel=1&z=12&lat=47.71996215890253&lng=-117.04954261018908

That money can be spent for a wide range of climate-related purposes, including transit, bike lanes, sidewalks, rail transit, telecommuting, or other less carbon-intensive forms of transportation or substitutes for transportation. Here's where that money is being invested: https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-Commitment-Act/Auction-proceeds

So, in essence, the State of Washington is ALREADY applying a non-roadway tax to gasoline and diesel fuel. It took 43 years from my original research to find a pathway --- and the fact that our planet is on fire created the political will to address this challenge.

The first auction, at the beginning of the year, cleared at $4/ton of CO2 emissions. The second went higher -- $56/ton. Those are hefty prices -- California carbon allowances are only about $30/ton. Washington is being more assertive about carbon reductions.

Maybe we like our planet more than they like theirs. Hmm. Think about that...