OPINION: Why raising the gasoline tax in New Mexico is unfair

Protecting our citizens and their businesses and employees should be the Legislature’s top priority.

Recently a series of articles in the Santa Fe New Mexican was about raising our gasoline tax rates. Gas tax hikes reverberate throughout our economy. Because of gasoline tax increases, we see higher daily costs of living including costs to commute to work and for visits to the doctor’s office. We see this tax imposing undue hardships on rural New Mexicans predominantly, but it also negatively impacts everyone who commutes to work daily. This increase would be especially impactful in this time of high inflation which has harmed all New Mexicans.

Today New Mexicans, who buy gasoline as a needed fuel to get the kids to school, go to work or to get their loved ones to a doctor, pay 17 cents per gallon on gasoline purchased. This is true unless your purchase was on tribal property which is exempt from paying the required road tax. About 75% of the tax goes to the State Road Fund with the remainder of the tax going to local governments.

I have been perplexed over the years as I have seen sitting legislators support the Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates at the cost of New Mexicans’ daily lives. Several of these legislators have purchased EVs thinking it was a great idea only to realize that when they come to Santa Fe they don’t have enough battery capacity to get home. So, what do they do? They plug their EVs into the Capitol circuits, recharging their batteries at the cost of their constituents. That may have been the clever idea they perceived in this purchase: subsidies provided by the taxpayer to purchase the vehicle and free power, provided at taxpayer expense, to get home. I bet many taxpayers wished Santa Fe would buy them a tank of gasoline when they came to Santa Fe to attend a legislative session. Oh, and by the way, how much road tax do EV owners pay? Not a single solitary dime. Zippo. Nada. If you are an owner of a gasoline vehicle today, they are about to ask you to pay more so that their EVs can continue being subsidized and in some cases, to provide taxpayer-funded power to your legislator all while they pay no tax equal to the tax 98% of New Mexicans pay. Treating citizens in this manner is simply unfair.

Small businesses, farmers and ranchers depend upon affordable fuel to transport their goods and services to the marketplace. Any increase in their input costs, the cost of production, or the cost to market, decreases their often meager profit margins. In rural New Mexico, the choice of public transportation does not exist. Three-quarters of New Mexicans do not have the possibility of a Rail Runner. Many of these communities do not have Uber-type services.

Recently, one of my colleagues, Sen. Ant Thornton, was quoted as saying that, “Math had left the building,” referring to commonsense approaches to businesses when addressed by legislators in our Roundhouse. He is 100% correct. Legislators were approving purchases of electric school buses for $450,000 each, when a diesel-powered bus cost $150,000. My point is: I agree with Thornton, commonsense and math have left the building when addressing road maintenance.

The easy way out is always to say raise taxes. It is what we have always done. We have to bring math and commonsense back into the process, regardless of political party. Math and common sense deserve a seat at the table.

Currently, we have approximately $9 billion in the Early Childhood Fund, more money than we could ever deploy, especially in a declining population. Just a dividend of 5% on that raises approximately $450 million a year, possibly a solid source for the road fund without touching the principal. We could stop the subsidies on wind and solar and save tens of millions annually. We could impose fair taxation of wind generated power that New Mexicans subsidize for Arizona and California! Many legislators do not want to discuss that and most New Mexicans don’t realize that they subsidize electric power for California and Arizona. It is one of the most embarrassing things we do to our seniors and veterans on fixed incomes.

Recently, we passed a California initiative called the “Clean Fuels Program.” Currently, this is in the rule-making process but is estimated to raise fuel prices about 50 cents a gallon. That is coming soon and gasoline prices are going up, certainly in 2026 and that impact is before and will be in addition to any increases proposed in gasoline taxes.

In conclusion: We have plenty of money, we just need to stop and use our heads. We can’t keep saying, “Let’s raise taxes” every time. Our job as responsible legislators is to use taxpayer money judiciously, to save taxpayer money every time we can and yes, to improve our roads through better management.