{"id":41765,"date":"2022-03-09T19:08:14","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T02:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gov-polis-joins-other-governors-in-calling-for-federal-gas-tax-suspension\/"},"modified":"2022-03-10T02:08:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T02:08:14","slug":"gov-polis-joins-other-governors-in-calling-for-federal-gas-tax-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gov-polis-joins-other-governors-in-calling-for-federal-gas-tax-suspension\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Polis joins other governors in calling for federal gas tax suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Jared Polis speaks at a news conference beneath Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs during a visit to Colorado by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Feb. 24. (Chase Woodruff\/Colorado Newsline)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With gasoline prices nationwide expected to continue their upward surge in the wake of President Joe Biden\u2019s ban on the importation of oil from Russia<\/a>, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday reiterated his support for a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax.<\/p>\n

In a joint letter<\/a> to congressional leaders, Polis and five other Democratic governors urged passage of the Gas Tax Relief Act<\/a>, legislation proposed last month by a group of Senate Democrats. The bill would suspend collection of the federal gas tax of 18.3 cents per gallon until Jan. 1, 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when people are directly impacted by rising prices on everyday goods, a federal gas tax holiday is a tool in the toolbox to reduce costs for Americans, and we urge you to give every consideration to this proposed legislation,\u201d the governors wrote.<\/p>\n

Biden on Tuesday heeded bipartisan calls<\/a> to ban the importation of Russian oil and gas in the wake of the country\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, which had already sent shockwaves through global energy markets. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States reached $4.17 on Tuesday, the highest level since 2008 and a 71-cent increase from just a month ago, according to AAA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this action, it\u2019s going to go up further,\u201d Biden said of the import ban.<\/p>\n

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscally conservative nonprofit, estimated <\/a>last month that the Gas Tax Relief Act would reduce federal revenues by $20 billion. The legislation would authorize the Treasury Department to replace the lost revenue to the government\u2019s Highway Trust Fund, the majority of which is currently funded by gas taxes, with general fund dollars.<\/p>\n

Polis first called on the federal government to \u201cimmediately suspend the federal gas tax\u201d shortly after Russia\u2019s invasion began last month. He has also called on state lawmakers in the General Assembly to delay implementation of a new 2-cent-per-gallon fee on gasoline purchases, a hike passed as part of a landmark transportation-funding package<\/a> signed into law by Polis last year.<\/p>\n

Unless adjusted by the Legislature, the fee is scheduled to take effect in July and rise incrementally to 8 cents a gallon by 2028, in addition to the state\u2019s motor fuel tax<\/a> of 22 cents per gallon. The federal gas tax has remained flat at 18.3 cents a gallon since it was last raised in 1993.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

would suspend collection of 18.3 cents per gallon until 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[221,259],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-gas-and-oil","tag-transportation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41765"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}