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This year, President Obama will propose to Congress a six-year highway bill that sets surface transportation policies for the remainder of the decade. We anticipate that the goal will be to generate Congressional support for repairing our country’s roads, addressing congestion, increasing safety, generating blue collar jobs, and improving freight logistics. However, many Americans do not know where the money for those projects comes from.  Here’s a quick primer. 

Every time you fill up at the pump, you pay 18.4 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel. This federal Highway-User fee is placed into the Highway Trust Fund, which primarily finances road projects across th! e country, enabling Americans to get to work and school each day and create a thriving interstate commerce system. This excise tax isn’t a variable amount, and it’s not tied to the cost of fuel. The more gasoline and diesel Americans buy, the more revenue we have for roads.

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