Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Air Quality

OPINION: Raise the Gas Tax? Yes, but Fix Transportation Spending First

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

As Congress considers President Biden’s $1.7 trillion infrastructure proposal, a broad array of Americans with competing viewpoints and interests has been offering their two cents about how to pay for necessary investments in our country’s transportation future.

John Stout
John Stout
John Stout

Decision makers have proposed increased taxes on both corporations and wealthy individuals, along with a tax on vehicle-miles traveled, as possible options. But until recently, few on Capitol Hill had spoken about one of the most important sources of federal transportation funding: the gas tax.

That changed last month when a bipartisan group of more than 50 House lawmakers, dubbed the Problem Solvers Caucus, endorsed raising the gas tax as a way to pay for infrastructure spending.

It’s good to see support on both sides of the aisle for a higher federal gas tax, which has hovered at just over 18 cents a gallon for nearly three decades. Raising the gas tax will help ensure that those who drive pay for a larger share of the damage they do to our roads, air and climate.

A higher gas tax would also help to address one of the more intractable problems we face — filling the growing transportation funding gap. Currently, federal gas tax revenues go into a special Highway Trust Fund to pay for road and transit projects. However, since 2008, the money from drivers has covered little more than half of the cost of upkeeping and expanding our roadways. Most of the rest of the trust fund’s $157 billion in expenditures over the last decade came from general tax revenue that all Americans pay regardless of how  they drive or whether they even own a car.

The long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund is concerning, but there is a more important question to consider before trying to solve this problem with an increase in the gas tax: What projects does the Highway Trust actually pay for? Unfortunately, too much of that money goes to harmful, wasteful highway boondoggle projects, which impose massive costs on public health and climate change, while touted benefits, such as reduced congestion, often fail to materialize.

On top of the estimated 58,000 American whose lives are cut short each year by air pollution, transportation is now the number-one source of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and the single largest contributor to the global climate crisis. Beyond causing us personal suffering, our transportation decisions are causing more extreme temperatures, shifting weather patterns and an increased prevalence of deadly diseases around the world.

We can’t keep pumping new money into a broken system and expect a different result.

Our country’s history of car-centric transportation infrastructure investments has also diverted precious resources away from the kinds of transportation projects that are most valuable to Americans: repairing potholes on streets, improving and electrifying public transit service and installing better safety infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.

The problems we face are daunting. Given the urgent need for action to thwart climate change and clean up America’s transportation sector, we can no longer afford to let the gas tax grow dusty on the shelf. We clearly need all available tools moving forward.

If we really want to make good on Biden’s efforts to modernize, and eventually decarbonize, our country’s infrastructure, we need a bold vision for not only how we raise transportation dollars but also how we spend them. It’s time to take a step back and reassess our priorities so that moving forward, we only fund transportation projects that will build a healthier, more sustainable transportation network ready to meet our challenges and aspirations for the 21st century.

John Stout (@JohnStoutJHS) is a transportation advocate with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday Video: We’re All Paying For ‘Free’ Parking, Whether Or Not We Drive

Parking mandates aren't the only reason why your city has so much asphalt. Check out the hidden reason why so many businesses build way more parking than they need.

August 1, 2025

Friday’s Headlines Take It Back

Apparently transportation can be too "woke." Plus, only cities can save us from climate change now, and more headlines.

August 1, 2025

Opinion: Ohio is the Poster Child for Why We Need a Stronger Federal Approach to Passenger Rail

Ohio's reluctance to build new passenger rail has made them a bottleneck in the national network, and an emblem of bigger national problem.

August 1, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: Measuring Emissions Reduction for Bike Commutes

Mark Kabbash on his new system for measuring and verifying bike commuting to obtain carbon avoidance credits.

July 31, 2025

Cities Matter More Than Ever After Trump Officially Denies Climate Change

We're entering a new era of federal climate denial, and it's time to use a different set of tools to fight back.

July 31, 2025

SEE IT! Small Japanese Pickup Truck Shows Bigger is Definitely Not Better

One Brooklyn business has seen the future of safe streets and heavy lugging — and it's going to be O-KEI!

July 31, 2025
See all posts