California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra says he is willing to consider taxing drivers for every mile they travel as a way to fund road and bridge repairs, a proposal that would land on top of existing gas and vehicle taxes already paid by Californians, including the roughly 3.3 million registered vehicles in San Diego County.
“Everything should be on the table,” Becerra said in an interview with KCRA’s Ashley Zavala when asked whether he’d back a mileage-based tax as governor.
“Our roads aren’t maintained just by some magic wand. We have to pay for it. Do I want to tax people more than necessary? No. Should we pay a gas tax? Yes. Should people who drive electric vehicles, who don’t need gas, pay for those roads to be repaired as well? Absolutely.”
Becerra, the former state attorney general and Biden-era Health and Human Services secretary, is running to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. His remarks land as state officials finish a study examining whether to replace the traditional gas tax with a vehicle-miles-traveled fee.
Any such tax would add to the cost of living in a state already known for being expensive, and would be felt most by residents with long commutes — a familiar reality for many San Diego County workers priced out of housing near job centers and driving in from inland and outlying communities.
San Diego County has already had a brush with this idea. Local officials floated a regional mileage tax in 2021 but dropped it after public pushback. The state itself ran a pilot mileage-fee program under SB 1 back in 2018.
Republican pushback
Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, a Republican, has been warning that Democrats in Sacramento could enact a statewide mileage tax through the Legislature without ever putting it before voters.
Under the structure DeMaio describes, drivers could be charged between 6 cents and 9 cents per mile on top of the gas tax and vehicle taxes they already pay. At the lower rate, someone driving 15,000 miles a year would pay an extra $900 annually — a cost DeMaio equates to an 87-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike.
“Because of the extreme policies of Democrats in Sacramento, California has the highest cost of living in the nation – and now the Democrats want to make it worse by imposing a crazy new Mileage Tax on all drivers,” DeMaio said.
DeMaio argues the state hasn’t held up its end of the bargain on existing road funding. “We already pay a gas tax and a car tax for roads that are falling apart, and that money has been diverted elsewhere,” he said. He also contends the fee would hit working-class residents hardest, since many have been pushed into long commutes by California’s housing costs.
Becerra’s openness to the mileage tax comes alongside other proposals he’s floated, including higher taxes on wealthy Californians and new fees on corporations that don’t provide adequate health benefits to full-time employees.
