Matt Mahan

But as you know,

higher income wealthier people have already adopted EVs.

They're not paying this tax.

It's working folks, particularly in towns like Watsonville, where I grew up.

I mean, when I was in high school, I had to go 50 miles one way for high school.

My parents went 50 miles the other way for their jobs.

And so it disproportionately hurts working people.

My proposal is that we, to start, temporarily suspend our gas tax to provide immediate relief to working families who are paying the price for a war that they didn't ask for, and they're disproportionately paying the price.

I would temporarily suspend it, but we have to be intellectually honest about this.

It is our primary source of revenue for paving and maintaining roads and our transportation infrastructure.

We will need to shift how we do this.

Rather than being a gas tax, first of all, the general fund is up 75% in the last six years.

So I'm pretty confident in a state that's spending $350 billion we can afford to pave our roads without punishing working families.

But I also think over time, as EV adoption increases, we'll have to find a smarter way of charging a basic user fee so that people who use the roads pay to maintain them.

I think there are a few components to the strategy going forward here.

Number one, we have to rebuild the private marketplace.

90% of homeowners, maybe more, can be covered by private insurance affordably.

And we have to rebuild that part of the market by bringing them back, allowing them to appropriately price risk and creating more granularity.

If you're willing, and you may not be,

But if you're willing to remove those trees within 100 feet of your home, you should pay a lower premium.