Vehicles: registration fee: sustainable communities strategies.

Existing law imposes a registration fee to be paid to the Department of Motor Vehicles for the registration of every vehicle or trailer coach of a type subject to registration, except those vehicles that are expressly exempted from the payment of registration fees. Existing law, until January 1, 2016, imposes a $3 increase on that fee, $2 of which is to be deposited into the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Fund and $1 of which is to be deposited into the Enhanced Fleet Modernization Subaccount. Existing law requires designated transportation planning agencies, some of which are metropolitan planning organizations under federal law, to prepare and adopt a regional transportation plan directed at achieving a coordinated and balanced regional transportation system, including, but not limited to, mass transportation and highway, railroad, bicycle, and pedestrian facilities and services. Existing law requires each metropolitan planning organization to include, among other things, a sustainable communities strategy in the regional transportation plan. This bill would, in addition to any other taxes and fees specified in the Vehicle Code and the Revenue and Taxation Code, impose a tax of $6 to be paid at the time of registration or renewal of registration of every vehicle subject to registration under the Vehicle Code in a county that is in a metropolitan planning organization required to prepare a sustainable communities strategy as part of its regional transportation plan, except as specified. This bill would require the Department of Motor Vehicles, after deducting all reasonable administrative costs, to remit the money generated by the tax for deposit in the Sustainable Communities Strategy Subaccount, which the bill would establish in the Motor Vehicle Account. The bill would make funds in the subaccount available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for specified purposes.