On June 22, President Joe Biden called on Congress to provide Americans with a federal gas tax holiday for three months, through September, adding to his previous actions to lower gas prices.
Biden’s suspension of the federal gas tax of 18 cents per gallon of gasoline joins other actions seeking to lower gas prices, including the release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and “encouraging oil companies and refiners to boost capacity and output to get more supply on the market,” according to a White House fact sheet.
“A federal gas tax holiday could save consumers 18¢/gallon—and that's in addition to everything else we're already doing to help lower the price of gas for Americans,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm tweeted on Twitter.
Granholm tweeted that she is involved in actions to lower gas costs.
“We're releasing 1 MILLION barrels/day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months, we're rallying international partners, expanding access to biofuels, and I'm meeting with oil & gas executives to cooperate on delivering more relief at the pump,” Granholm tweeted.
Biden knows that a gas tax holiday alone won’t relieve increases in costs, the White House fact sheet said. However, it will give families some “breathing room.”
“The price of gas is up by almost $2 a gallon since Putin accelerated his military build-up, and those high prices pose a challenge for working families,” Biden tweeted. “Today, I'm calling on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months to provide Americans some much-needed relief.”
In addition to the federal gas tax holiday, Biden called on Congress to suspend the tax without taking money from the Highway Trust Fund. He also called on states to provide direct relief.
“The ultimate truth is, as long as our nation remains overly reliant on fossil fuels, we will feel these price shocks again during another crisis,” Granholm tweeted. “We're hard at work laying the foundation for a clean energy economy to provide cheap and reliable energy for Americans.”
