Stop the Gas Tax Hike in Maryland & Delaware

Is now the time for Maryland and Delaware to implement policies that dramatically increase the cost of gasoline?

Policymakers in the northeast states, including Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, are considering a regional transportation initiative that would impose a new gas tax on the region and restrict the sale of gas by 30%.

The plan, which is being developed and led by Georgetown University’s Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI) and relies on unfounded and untested academic models will:

• Upend the economies in Maryland and Delaware with new mandates and taxes that threaten to destroy hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs already at risk due to COVID-19
• Require Maryland and Delaware residents to pay as much as 17 cents or more for every gallon of gas they buy
• Outsource local decision-making on transportation to an unelected, multi-state nonprofit
• Impose a regressive tax that disproportionately impacts low-income residents
• Hurt local small businesses by sending consumers to neighboring states with less expensive gas

Three states (Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island) and the District of Columbia have signed on to the Transportation Climate Initiative MOU. Without an immediate response from citizens and businesses in Maryland and Delaware, this initiative will move forward unchecked.

How it Impacts You:

Here is what you need to know about the TCI plan:

Maryland and Delaware residents will pay more for gasoline.

Under the TCI plan, consumers could pay a 17 cents or more per gallon increase in gasoline prices, even as we grapple with the COVID-19 recession. That’s an average of $250 more in gasoline costs for families in the region every year – the equivalent of a month’s worth of groceries for low-income households. More than 670,000 Marylanders and nearly 300,000 Delawareans have filed for unemployment benefits since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Imposing a new gas tax increase on struggling families and small businesses will have devastating consequences, especially for poor and rural communities.

Maryland and Delaware’s economy will be hit hard.

It’s simple geography. Delaware and Maryland’s citizens and business owners are on the periphery of the Northeast region, meaning small businesses in Maryland, Delaware, and D.C. are most vulnerable to consumers and businesses choosing other states where they can find less expensive fuels.

Maryland and Delaware will outsource decision-making to an unelected bureaucracy.

The new gas tax plan was developed by Washington academics at Georgetown University’s Transportation & Climate Initiative. Under their plan, Maryland and Delaware would outsource the authority to spend gas tax revenue to a new, unelected bureaucratic organization.

State road projects will suffer.

The draft plan requires Maryland and Delaware’s elected representatives to follow rules developed by the unelected, multistate non-profit that dictate how gas tax revenue can be spent. So far, the initiatives set forth by the plan include bike lanes and tax breaks to purchase electric vehicles, which are disproportionately bought by the wealthy. Electric vehicles don’t support the maintenance of roads and bridges – the current gasoline taxes do.

Businesses will be burdened.

The TCI plan proposal imposes a new regulatory and inspection scheme on thousands of businesses and would subject Maryland and Delaware business owners to the whim of this newly created multistate entity and tax collector.

Restricting the amount of gasoline that can be sold is a bad idea.

The stakes are too high to give complete control over gasoline sales to a newly created non-profit entity that must juggle the competing concerns of 12 states.