WASHINGTON, D.C. – According to a blog posted by Mary Peters, secretary of Transportation for the US DOT, several proposals have been floated on Capitol Hill that would give Americans a summer gas tax holiday by temporarily eliminating the federal 18.4 cents a gallon tax on fuel.

"While the Administration is remaining neutral on the question, I welcome the debate, and think it is a terrific opportunity to have a larger discussion about the gas tax," Peters said in her blog at http://fastlane.dot.gov/secretarysblog/2008/05/a-gas-tax-holid.html.

According to Peters, as the primary federal funding mechanism for the national highway system, the gas tax is outdated, inefficient, and unpopular.

"Now, however, we have exciting new financing mechanisms that are supplementing the gas tax while simultaneously reducing congestion," she said. "Through the broad deployment of high-speed, open-road tolling technologies, coupled with hundreds of billions of dollars of private sector capital, we can begin eliminating our dependence on a failed gas tax-based transportation model."

Peters said that it is time for the United States to embrace a more efficient, clean, and technology-based approach to charging for road use, and that this new approach will dramatically improve the quality and performance of U.S. transportation systems.

"It will also give businesses and families the type of predictable and reliable service levels to which they have become accustomed when making phone calls, running the sink, or turning on the lights," Peters said. "We can also eliminate Washington's ability to use our transportation network as its own personal — and political — sandbox."

 

0 Comments