Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered a lukewarm response Monday to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the federal gas tax should be suspended — even as several GOP lawmakers embraced the idea amid a global oil supply crunch.
“I’ve not in the past obviously been a fan of that idea,” Thune told reporters. “But, you know, I’ve got some colleagues out there who think it’s a good idea, and so we’ll hear them out.”
As the war with Iran keeps millions of barrels of oil from transiting the Strait of Hormuz daily, Trump endorsed the idea of a gas-tax holiday during a Monday CBS News interview.
“We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in,” he said.
Thune has long been cool to suspending the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax, telling reporters earlier this year that he didn’t know that it “is going to lower [gas prices] by a lot.”
He added that reopening the Strait of Hormuz would “normalize gas prices as much as anything” and that suspending the gas tax could negatively impact the federal funding for highway projects.
But after Trump endorsed the idea Monday, several House and Senate Republicans voiced support, with some introducing legislation to suspend the gas tax.
Thune said Monday that “we’ll see where our members are, and if the president wants to make an argument in support of that, I’m sure everybody will give him a chance and hear him out.”
A gas tax holiday also has some Democratic support, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer argued Monday that Americans need even more relief — without explicitly opposing the idea.
“Senate Democrats will support real action to lower costs. But let’s not pretend 18 cents of gas tax relief per gallon makes up for the damage Trump created,” Schumer said. “Eighteen cents isn’t $1.50, which is how much the price of gas has gone up since the war started.”
