Today’s Highway Trust Fund faces a steady decline in revenue as inflation and fuel-efficient vehicles render the Federal Gas Tax increasingly ineffectual. Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Oregon’s 3rd, is a career-long spokesperson for livable communities and multi-modal transit. Last session of Congress, he introduced a bill (HR6662) to direct the Department of the Treasury to study alternatives to the existing gas tax for raising federal highway funds. He advocates retiring the gas tax in favor of a new, cents-per-mile initiative. In the below interview with VerdeXchagne News, Congressman Blumenauer addresses the problems facing the gas tax, the politics surrounding it, and the advantages discovered by a distance-based pilot program in his home state.
