By John Bozzella
What do I make of skyrocketing gas prices?
A good question. Here are a few more worth considering:
How will consumers in the market for a new vehicle react? Will Americans drive less?
And what does it mean for a government fund that relies on gas tax revenue to build roads and bridges? (Read on…)
Depending on how long this current global oil shock lasts, I do expect to see a consumer shift toward more fuel-efficient vehicles.
By the way, that’s not a new trend.
Traditional gas vehicle market share is down 24 percentage points since 2016. Hybrids were 19 percent of sales in January 2026.
So, we might see a shift in the marketplace. (Online searches for EVs are up 20 percent since the conflict began.)
That’s likely to accelerate the insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund – the government’s dedicated account to build, fix and maintain America’s transportation infrastructure.
Congress is looking at a five-year highway and transportation funding bill right now. That’s the perfect time to consider a policy change that does two things at once: brings down the cost of gas and shores up the trust fund for our fuel-efficient gas vehicle, hybrid and electric vehicle era.
Here’s the idea: What if we scrapped the federal gas tax and replaced it with a single fee on every vehicle based on weight?
Like a registration fee. Straightforward. And easy to collect.
A quick sidebar on how we got here and why this is an idea that’s time has come.
The trust fund relies on revenue generated by an 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax.
The tax hasn’t budged since 1993 when gasoline averaged $1.11 per gallon. If you’ve filled up lately, a gallon of gas is something like $4… and rising.
Increasing the gas tax has been a nonstarter in Congress.
So, the tax is not keeping up with inflation, and it’s also generating less revenue as Americans migrate to fuel-efficient gas vehicles, hybrids and EVs. Vehicles that use little or no gas at all. (Not a bad thing.)
Anyway, you can see why this dynamic is sapping the trust fund of revenue.
In fact, Congress has to regularly backfill the fund with billions of dollars just to keep it from going broke.
Back to the vehicle fee idea.
This policy would guarantee every vehicle on the road contributes something to maintaining America’s transportation network.
Right now, millions of drivers pay little (or nothing at all) to the trust fund – even though they use the roads.
Those driving older, less fuel-efficient vehicles or who travel long distances bear the financial burden. That’s not fair.
How much should the new fee be? Another good question.
Congress will have to develop a formula that replaces what an average driver currently pays into the system from the gas tax but isn’t punitive or too onerous. That’s what I like about a fee based on weight.
Here’s what I know: The existing gas tax model isn’t cutting it.
We can drive with the devil we know… or get behind a new policy that requires every vehicle on the road to contribute to the upkeep of America’s roads and bridges.
A single, weight-based vehicle fee can fully fund the Highway Trust Fund. That’s not something you can say about the gas tax.
And it’s simple. Nobody would need to track how many miles you drive (like some proposals out there) to determine what you pay.
Beyond that, it’s an overdue policy change that insulates infrastructure spending – a $3.5 trillion national need over the next decade – from gas price shocks and inevitable geopolitical disruptions.
Congress should dump the gas tax once and for all.
John Bozzella is president and CEO of Alliance for Automotive Innovation.