By Brandon Noel – For ConstructionPros.com – February 2025
While the HTF’s solvency problems are very real, and we need to address the increased gap that EV and other alternative fuel vehicles have created, this legislation has just one problem: It won’t work.
Discussions about the insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) have been happening since the early 2000s, and I wrote in 2023 how the booming EV market was going to make matters worse. While several committee hearings were held during the Biden administration, neither the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) nor the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) addressed the problem.
In short, the HTF was funded for nearly seven decades through the federal gas taxes that are collected when you refuel an internal combustion engine (ICE). It is a consumption-based tax that was originally designed to link the use of petroleum based, fossil fuels, to the maintenance and condition of our roadways. The problem with a consumption-based tax on fuel is that as new technologies, innovative designs, and battery breakthroughs happen, the consumption of fuel has greatly diminished and continues to decline.
Instead of this being received as a good thing, due to lower pollution, cleaner air, and cheaper transportation, it’s has caused considerable handwringing going back before the early 2000s. The HTF has been running out of money, and it’s been running out of money for a long time.
On Feb. 12, 2025, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) reintroduced a bill that she says is meant to rebalance the scales, and ensure that EV owners are paying their fair share of the costs to maintain the roads they use. In addition to Fischer, the legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.). Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) introduced identical companion legislation in the House.
Named the “Fair Sharing of Highways and Roads for Electric Vehicles Act,” or the “Fair SHARE,” act, it proposes a one-time fee on the battery at the point-of-sale to manufacturers totaling $550, “on each battery module with a weight of greater than 1,000 pounds….intended for use in an electric vehicle.”