Pa. Senate adopts bill to end gas tax increase; measure heads to House

HARRISBURG — State senators advanced a bill last week proposing to roll back this year’s automatic increase to Pennsylvania’s gas tax and halt future increases.

The Senate voted 29-19 with two Democrats joining Republicans to send the measure to the state House. Its prospects in the lower chamber are unknown. The House remains mired in an indefinite legislative recess.

Authored by Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R-Cambria/Centre/Clearfield, the bill proposes to reset the average wholesale fuel price to $2.99 and keep it there in perpetuity.

“My legislation will cut the gas tax before hardworking families must pay the second-highest gas tax in the nation,” Langerholc said in a statement. “At a time when our constituents are faced with rising costs at the pump, grocery store and utility bills, no elected official should be voting against this legislation.”

The Department of Revenue annually calculates the average wholesale price on all taxable fuels, fossil or alternative. The tax increase was triggered at the start of 2023 when the price rose to $3.17.

Revenue from Pennsylvania’s gas tax is used to fund highway and bridge construction, roadway maintenance and improvement.

Langerholc had previously estimated that the tax would generate an additional $225 million this year.

That led to the concerns of Senate Democrats who posited that the revenue reset would jeopardize scheduled projects statewide.

“This is not the right solution,” Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, said during Senate debate Wednesday. “It is fiscally irresponsible and also socially irresponsible,” he said, the latter part a reference to potential safety risks to motorists.

In a Transportation Committee hearing this week, chaired by Langerholc, the Republican lawmaker noted that PennDOT’s budget this year approached $10 billion. The issue, Langerholc said, is not one of revenue; rather, it’s of spending. Langerholc also pinned blame for the increased tax on the energy policies of the Wolf and Biden administrations.

“There’s nothing here that has been allocated that is in jeopardy of being lost,” Langerholc said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

Pennsylvania’s tax was already among the nation’s highest before it climbed another 3.5 cents on gasoline at the start of 2023, pushing the total to 61.1 cents per gallon — a cost passed through to consumers.

In neighboring Ohio, the tax has been 38.5 cents on gasoline and 47 cents on diesel since 2019. Pennsylvania’s increase made gasoline cost 22.6 cents more and diesel 31.5 cents more on the Pennsylvania side of the border.

Motorists pay 79.4 cents on each gallon pumped in Pennsylvania when adding in the federal excise tax of 18.3 cents.

The Pennsylvania state tax on diesel fuel rose by 4.4 cents to 78.5 cents per gallon. The total per-gallon tax is $1.02 on diesel when combined with the 24.3-cent federal excise tax.