Amidst affordability grind, Mass. House rejects gas tax holiday
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By Sam Drysdale | State House News Service
THE HOUSE REJECTED a suspension of the gas tax on Wednesday afternoon, turning down an affordability idea favored in public opinion polling and by the two leading candidates for governor.
They shot down the proposal 30-121, with a Republican leader arguing from the floor that the state should do what it can to provide relief during an affordability crisis, and Democrats responding that they are not confident consumers would see savings reflected at the pump while the state lost revenue that is dedicated for transportation.
Healey recommended a gas tax holiday just weeks before — seemingly a direct response to her Republican opponent in the race for governor, Mike Minogue, who suggested his own scheme for a gas tax holiday. When House Ways and Means left the gas tax suspension out of their version of the $2.35 million spending bill, Republicans took up the issue, filing an amendment with the whole caucus’s support behind it. The bill (H 5699) cleared the House on a vote of 152-0.
“A new UMass poll shows 69 percent of voters support temporarily suspending the gas tax. That is a message this body should take loud and clear,” said Rep. Todd Smola of Warren, who filed the amendment.
He later said, “both candidates for governor have recognized the need for gas tax relief. I may disagree with the governor on many issues, but on this point, I agree. We should do what we can to lower costs for the people that we represent.”
Democratic Reps. Dennis Gallagher, Colleen Garry, Steven Ouellette, David Robertson and Alan Silvia joined Republicans in voting for the tax holiday. Gallagher, Ouellette and Silvia face Republican challengers to represent purple districts in next month’s election.
Democratic Rep. Adrian Madaro, who chairs the Joint Committee on Revenue, said the suspension would set “a dangerous precedent.”
“It’s a short-term political fix that will do virtually nothing to assuage the high costs squeezing our constituents, providing minimal savings at most to the average taxpayer,” he said.
Co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Rep. James Arciero said suspending the gas tax in Massachusetts would save the average driver about $25 per month.
“That is barely enough to respond in a meaningful way to current gas prices,” he said.
In the meantime, the state would lose out on an expected $120 million in revenues over the 60-day period the governor and Republicans proposed.
“To put that into context: $120 million funds two years worth of MBTA infrastructure costs, six years worth of MBTA low-income fares, 12 years worth of capital infrastructure improvements for our RTAs, 24 years worth of microtransit, or 30 years worth of grants for unpaid road improvements by substantially reducing one of the existing revenue streams that flows into the [Commonwealth Transportation Fund],” Arciero said.
Both Madaro and Arciero pointed to a gas tax suspension in Connecticut in 2022.
Arciero said, “In 2022, Connecticut suspended their fuel excise for a nine-month period, much longer than the two-month period proposed by this amendment. Connecticut returned to the original gas tax after, and it was estimated that drivers saved $13 per month.”
Madaro argued that in Connecticut oil companies used the temporary price cut to increase profit margins rather than lowering the price at the pump for drivers.
Healey said her administration purposefully wrote the gas tax suspension to prevent this from happening, but it was a core part of Democratic representatives’ argument against it.
The News Service asked Healey earlier Wednesday for a response to House leaders saying it would not necessarily help residents at the pump, including a comment from House Speaker Ron Mariano who called the idea, “gimmicks and tricks to get some simple solutions to some complex problems.”
Healey’s spokesperson responded: “There is nothing gimmicky about a proposal to give gas tax relief to people. We worked hard to draft legislation that ensures drivers get the savings and that no transportation projects are impacted. We agree that we need Donald Trump to end this war, but in the meantime Governor Healey is going to do what’s in her power to lower gas prices for people, and that means continuing to push for this temporary gas tax relief for drivers.”
She also pointed to Connecticut’s gas tax holiday as similar to the governor’s proposal.
Smola said from the floor: “In the governor’s own words, she explained her approach this way: ‘I wanted to make sure that what we file guarantees that our drivers are going to see the price reduction. They’re going to see the benefits of this. And that’s why we wrote this the way we did.'”
“This is a temporary, targeted response to a real expense that Massachusetts residents have been facing every single week. And let me make one thing extremely clear: temporary relief is still relief for the people of Massachusetts,” Smola said.
