
In the hours before President Joe Biden held a press conference to officially call on Congress to approve a 90-day federal gas tax holiday, several prominent members of the president's own party effectively killed the idea.
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D–Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, released a statement Wednesday morning calling the idea "well-intentioned" but full of problems. Chief among them is the fact that suspending the gas tax for 90 days would blow a $10 billion hole in the federal Highway Trust Fund, for which the gas tax acts as a user fee.