Wisconsin – The American Society of Civil Engineers, the Wisconsin Report Card and Advocacy Committee member, Martin Hanson issued the following statement of opposition to a potential “Gas Tax Holiday”:
“Last year, President Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which represents a historic investment in Wisconsin’s infrastructure and is a significant step to reduce our growing infrastructure investment gap in the Badger State. Unfortunately, increasingly higher gasoline prices have led some in Congress, as well as President Biden, to call for a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax for the remainder of the year.”
“The ASCE Wisconsin Section strongly opposes the Biden Administration’s proposal to suspend the current 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax through the end of this year, with no mechanism in place to guarantee the savings trickle down to consumers or that the tax will be reinstated in 2023. Taking a gas tax “holiday” — even for a temporary amount of time — would result in the loss of over $20 billion from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), dealing a serious blow to the new bipartisan infrastructure law at a crucial point in time as Wisconsinites are expecting improvements to the nation’s roads, bridges, and transit systems that rely on that funding for maintenance and repair.”
“Now is the time to build on the momentum of the IIJA and for the first time in decades take significant steps to revitalize our aging transportation infrastructure, improve public safety, and create well-paying local jobs.”