Hickory Sun

As the politics of climate change ramp up across the country and gas prices continue to climb, Democratic senators have been moving toward a suspension of the federal gasoline tax in an election year, which U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is calling a “gimmick.”

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced a proposal to waive the 18.4-cent per gallon federal gasoline tax through the remainder of the year, which would carry past midterm elections in the fall.

Cosponsoring the bill are Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), who both face reelection campaigns in November, along with Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). However, Tillis said that the U.S. should be ramping up U.S. energy production instead. 

"I think it's a gimmick," Tillis told The Wall Street Journal. "Otherwise it’s just coincidentally a reprieve between now and after the election. I think anyone can look at that and see it for what it is."

The legislation comes as the American Automobile Association notes on its website that the cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in North Carolina stands at $3.55 a gallon, while diesel is averaging $4.01. Amid the increasing gasoline prices, Democrats have been hesitant to point a finger toward President Joe Biden for the spike in fuel costs. 

"Rising gas prices are a global issue caused by the behavior of Russia and other factors,” U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) told WSJ.

The WSJ Editorial Board zeroed in on Senate Democrats supporting the suspension of the gasoline tax, pointing out that they also backed Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which promised to impose additional taxes on U.S. oil and gasoline. 

“The Biden administration has slow-rolled oil and gas permits, halted lease sales on federal land, suspended leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” WSJ's editorial board wrote. 

The WSJ Editorial Board also noted that the U.S. recently lost its standing as the world’s swing producer of oil, a title now held by Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has reduced its investment in oil, which WSJ said is driving an increase in prices. They also claimed that the Biden administration and progressive investors have pushed financial regulations that have reduced capital to fossil fuels. 

Earlier this year, a federal Obama-appointed judge nixed the sale of oil and gas drilling leases located in an 80-million acre tract in the Gulf of Mexico.