The tax provides more than $23 billion per year in revenue for federal highway and public transit programs. The federal gas tax has been in place, in one way or another, since 1919 and was last raised in 1993.
Hundreds of preventable fatalities and more than 13 million metric tons of climate pollution would be avoided by 2045 if Congress passed legislation that answered advocates' long- time demand to require state DOTs to set declining annual fatality targets - and reallocate highway money to safety projects if they don't meet those goals, according to a new analysis from Evergreen Action.