Op-ed: President Obama's gas tax plan deserves attention

President Obama’s new budget proposal includes a $10 fee on oil, a thinly veiled tax that would generate money for investment in smart infrastructure, green technology and sustainable practices. The fee will be immediately paid by oil companies, but likely passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas prices. With petroleum plummeting in price, the White House has seized the moment to generate a national conversation about climate change and sustainable efforts, even if an oil fee will immediately be struck down in the Republican-controlled Congress.

White House plans for the oil fee, released ahead of President Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget submission, say that the fee could generate more than $32 billion in annual income. The largest chunk of these funds–about $20 billion– will go toward “enhanced transportation options,” projects like high-speed rails, mass transit systems and self-driving cars. While $20 billion may be a drop in the bucket compared to government defense spending, it is roughly equal to the budgets of the Department of the Interior and the Environment Protection Agency combined. The oil fee would also support a 150 percent increase of TIGER, a well-received stimulus program that will provide $500 million in discretionary funds for sustainable infrastructure projects. The White House plan allocates $2 billion annually to investments in Research and Development for clean transportation efforts like fuel-efficient airplanes and charging stations.

Due to North America’s energy resurgence and infighting among OPEC nations, oil prices have fallen 75 percent since mid-2014 to their lowest point in more than a decade. The timing is right for a gas tax to combat global warming, potentially the greatest challenge of the future. Transportation accounts for 30 percent of U.S. emissions, and the White House sees the fee as a source of new innovation in addition to an attempt to encourage sustainable transport.

However, the White House plan was met with immediate rejection from Republicans in Congress. "From day one of President Obama’s administration, he has waged open warfare on American energy," House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said (R-LA 1st district). The fee could add 25 cents a gallon to the cost of gasoline, a hike that would be unpopular with energy companies as well as much of the American public.

White House officials acknowledge that the plan is largely symbolic, meant to generate conversation and policy discussions around sustainable practices. After all, this proposal comes just months after President Obama signed the five-year, $305 billion FAST Act, a bipartisan highway bill which allocates money for the maintenance of the U.S’ transportation infrastructure. Historically, the highway fund was supplied by an 18.4 percent tax on gas, but Congress has not raised this figure since 1993, and it has fallen behind demand and inflation. While gas has become increasingly cheap, our nation’s roads, bridges and railways are crumbling, imposing $160 billion in costs and creating 7 billion hours of traffic every year, according to White House figures.

Upon release of the plan, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan remarked, “Once again, the president expects hard working consumers to pay for his out-of-touch climate agenda....As this lame-duck president knows, it’s dead on arrival in Congress.” Unfortunately, Ryan is right about this proposal’s future. But as the most powerful Republican in the country, he is demonstrating incredible myopia in responding to the current and future problems that this country faces. Republicans will never support a tax that harms energy companies that are already reeling from low oil prices. And most Americans will not look beyond the price sign at the gas station. Even Hillary Clinton – who supports sustainable efforts and investment in smart infrastructure–has pledged to oppose tax increases on families earning less than $250,000 a year, which this plan does, regressively. But this plan is not calling for a fee. It is not calling for a tax. Rather, the White House has proposed an investment, an allocation of resources into the future of our country, into stopping the economic and environmental hemorrhaging that we are doing every year as a result of our dependency on greenhouse gas-producing transportation.

In President Obama’s first term, he dismissed a Democratic transportation bill to avoid unpopular conversations over gasoline tax increases. Since then, he has seen his efforts on new infrastructure bills and a cap and trade program rejected by Republicans. Now, rather than avoiding the conversation, Obama is creating it, even if it places Democratic candidates like Clinton in an awkward position. Unfortunately, a conversation is not enough. This plan is a good one, and it’s a shame that all we can do it talk about it.