IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v74y2015icp210-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Paying for harbor maintenance in the US: Options for moving past the Harbor Maintenance Tax

Author

Listed:
  • McIntosh, C.R.
  • Wilmot, N.A.
  • Skalberg, R.K.

Abstract

The Harbor Maintenance Tax is a fundamentally flawed maintenance funding mechanism for the critical US port system. Three alternatives were analyzed. User fee rates were estimated for either a national or regional tonnage based fee. Our results indicate that maintenance cost recovering regional fees could vary widely from about 10cents per tonne to nearly 80cents per tonne. A national rate would be about 30cents per tonne. The large regional differences and affects on bulk shippers are likely to make implementing and maintaining cost recovering tonnage based fees infeasible. Two other mechanisms are considered. One possibility is to abolish the HMT without a replacement mechanism. The obvious strength of this approach is its simplicity, the weaknesses is that it is not budget neutral. Another possibility is to increase the federal diesel tax rate. One strength of the approach is the reasonable rate increase required to recover port maintenance costs (estimated between 0.278 and 0.315cents per liter). An additional strength is that relatively inefficient fuel users will either make the largest share of the additional payments or the freight will shift modes to one that is more efficient. One weakness is that the rate has been unchanged since 1997, this points to the political difficulty involved in passing such a rate increase.

Suggested Citation

  • McIntosh, C.R. & Wilmot, N.A. & Skalberg, R.K., 2015. "Paying for harbor maintenance in the US: Options for moving past the Harbor Maintenance Tax," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 210-221.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:74:y:2015:i:c:p:210-221
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2015.02.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856415000312
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2015.02.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tongzon, Jose L., 1995. "Determinants of port performance and efficiency," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 245-252, May.
    2. Delucchi, Mark A., 2007. "Do motor-vehicle users in the US pay their way?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 982-1003, December.
    3. Fung, Michael K. & Cheng, Leonard K. & Qiu, Larry D., 2003. "The impact of terminal handling charges on overall shipping charges: an empirical study," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 703-716, October.
    4. Delucchi, Mark, 2007. "Do Motor-Vehicle Users in the US Pay Their Way?," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt5841z3kx, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    5. Xenias, Dimitrios & Whitmarsh, Lorraine, 2013. "Dimensions and determinants of expert and public attitudes to sustainable transport policies and technologies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 75-85.
    6. Åsa Lofgren & Katarina Nordblom, 2010. "Attitudes towards CO2 taxation - is there an Al Gore effect?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(9), pages 845-848.
    7. Chouinard, Hayley & Perloff, Jeffrey M., 2004. "Incidence of federal and state gasoline taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 55-60, April.
    8. Delucchi, Mark, 2007. "Do Motor-Vehicle Users in the US Pay Their Way?," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt2884w7km, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    9. Gorman, Michael F., 2008. "Evaluating the public investment mix in US freight transportation infrastructure," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-14, January.
    10. Shashi Kumar, 2002. "User Charges for Port Cost Recovery: the US Harbour Maintenance Tax Controversy," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 4(2), pages 149-163, June.
    11. Kallbekken, Steffen & Garcia, Jorge H. & Korneliussen, Kristine, 2013. "Determinants of public support for transport taxes," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 67-78.
    12. Sterner, Thomas, 2007. "Fuel taxes: An important instrument for climate policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 3194-3202, June.
    13. Christopher R McIntosh & Randall K Skalberg, 2010. "A statistical approach to US harbor maintenance tax rates and replacement user fees," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 12(3), pages 263-279, September.
    14. Asgari, Nasrin & Farahani, Reza Zanjirani & Goh, Mark, 2013. "Network design approach for hub ports-shipping companies competition and cooperation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-18.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. Cordier & T. Poitelon & W. Hecq, 2019. "The shared environmental responsibility principle: new developments applied to the case of marine ecosystems," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 228-247, April.
    2. Merkel, Axel & Lindgren, Samuel, 2022. "Effects of fairway dues on the deployment and utilization of vessels: Lessons from a regression discontinuity design," Working Papers 2022:3, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    3. Jiang, Yonglei & Lu, Jing & Li, Jing & Wang, Lu, 2017. "Dynamic impacts of Harbor Tolls Policy on China's port economy – The case of Zhanjiang Port," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 37-43.
    4. Merkel, Axel & Lindgren, Samuel, 2022. "Effects of fairway dues on the deployment and utilization of vessels: Lessons from a regression discontinuity design," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 204-214.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark Delucchi & Don McCubbin, 2011. "External Costs of Transport in the United States," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Scheiner, Joachim, 2018. "Transport costs seen through the lens of residential self-selection and mobility biographies," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 126-136.
    3. Dumortier, Jerome & Zhang, Fengxiu & Marron, John, 2017. "State and federal fuel taxes: The road ahead for U.S. infrastructure funding," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 39-49.
    4. Yulia V. Leontyeva & Igor A. Mayburov, 2016. "Theoretical framework for building optimal transport taxation system," Journal of Tax Reform, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 2(3), pages 193-207.
    5. Tscharaktschiew, Stefan & Hirte, Georg, 2012. "Should subsidies to urban passenger transport be increased? A spatial CGE analysis for a German metropolitan area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 285-309.
    6. Gonzales, Eric Justin, 2011. "Allocation of Space and the Costs of Multimodal Transport in Cities," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7s28n4nj, University of California Transportation Center.
    7. Gonzales, Eric Justin, 2011. "Allocation of Space and the Costs of Multimodal Transport in Cities," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt07x7h9pg, University of California Transportation Center.
    8. Delucchi, Mark A. & McCubbin, Donald R., 2010. "External Costs of Transport in the U.S," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt13n8v8gq, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    9. Bandara, Yapa Mahinda & Nguyen, Hong-Oanh, 2016. "Influential factors in port infrastructure tariff formulation, implementation and revision," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 220-232.
    10. Axsen, Jonn & Wolinetz, Michael, 2021. "Taxes, tolls and ZEV zones for climate: Synthesizing insights on effectiveness, efficiency, equity, acceptability and implementation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    11. Lin, C.-Y. Cynthia & Prince, Lea, 2009. "The optimal gas tax for California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5173-5183, December.
    12. Sobieralski, Joseph B., 2013. "The optimal aviation gasoline tax for U.S. general aviation," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 186-191.
    13. Yoon, Junghyun & Lee, Hee Yong & Dinwoodie, John, 2015. "Competitiveness of container terminal operating companies in South Korea and the industry–university–government network," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1-14.
    14. Bergeaud, Antonin & Raimbault, Juste, 2020. "An empirical analysis of the spatial variability of fuel prices in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 131-143.
    15. Lesley Chiou & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Consumer Response to Cigarette Excise Tax Changes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(3), pages 621-650, September.
    16. Frederik von Waldow & Heike Link, 2024. "Spatial Competition and Pass-through of Fuel Taxes: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2086, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Sumei Chen & Ling‐Yun He, 2019. "Taxation and the Environment–Health–Poverty Trap: A Policy Experiment Perspective," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 27(1), pages 72-92, January.
    18. David Guerrero, 2020. "A global analysis of hinterlands from a European perspective. In: Global Logistics Network Modelling and Policy: Quantification and Analysis for International Freight," Post-Print hal-02551947, HAL.
    19. Vance, Colin & Frondel, Manuel, 2015. "From fuel taxation to efficiency standards: A wrong turn in European climate protection?," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113171, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Sterner, Thomas & Ewald, Jens & Sterner, Erik, 2024. "Economists and the climate," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:74:y:2015:i:c:p:210-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.