The Massachusetts Legislature still hasn’t approved the gas tax suspension Governor Maura Healey proposed over a week ago.
Healey announced her proposal on September 22 and filed it the next day. Drivers still pay the state’s 24-cent tax on each gallon of gas and diesel.
The Legislature’s bill history only shows one action. The House sent it to its Ways and Means Committee on September 24. Neither chamber has voted on it.
Massachusetts gas prices averaged $4.37 per gallon Wednesday, September 30, AAA reported. Drivers paid $3.08 per gallon a year ago.
Diesel averaged $6.36 per gallon. That's up from $3.85 last September.
Healey’s wants to suspend the tax for two months, starting seven days after she signs the bill.
Her bill would require gas stations to pass the savings on to drivers. However, they likely wouldn't get the full 24 cents per gallon.
A 2022 Wharton study found that drivers got between 58% and 87% of the savings from gas tax breaks in three states. Some price cuts disappeared before the breaks ended.
Healey’s administration says the state would lose $120 million in expected revenue. She wants to replace it with surplus money from the state’s millionaire tax. Her office says that would maintain funding for roads, bridges, and public transportation.
House Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) called Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Minogue’s gas tax suspension proposal “fiscally irresponsible” before Healey announced her plan. For context, Minogue wants to suspend the tax whenever gas prices reach $4 per gallon.
Mariano wasn't as dismissive of Healey's plan.
“I’ll take a look at it. She supposedly has a new way of funding this,” Mariano said on September 24.
As attorney general in 2022, Healey opposed a gas tax break. Back then, gas reached over $5 per gallon.
Massachusetts Republican Party chairwoman Amy Carnevale criticized Healey in a press release this week.
“Seven days later, families still pay $4.40 a gallon and diesel is still crushing truckers. A two-month promise she cannot get her own party to pass is election-year pandering,” Carnevale said.
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the war against Iran in February. The war has disrupted fuel supplies and shipping in the Middle East, helping drive up prices.
Iran has no known nuclear weapons. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute lists nine countries with nuclear weapons, including Israel. Iran isn’t one of them. Israel has never publicly acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu has repeatedly warned about an Iranian nuclear bomb for over 30 years. In 1992, he told Israel’s parliament that Iran could gain the ability to produce one within three to five years.
International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Grossi said September 7 that Iran hadn’t given inspectors the information or access they needed to check its nuclear sites and material. He called for negotiations.