PPA Response To The Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI)
In these challenging days we hope you and your families are healthy and safe. We’re sure you are focusing attention on how COVID-19 and its aftermath will impact those close to you and your businesses.
With this in mind, we want to discuss something that could have a major negative impact on your organization, and tell you what the Pennsylvania Petroleum Association is doing to address it.
As you may know, Gov. Tom Wolf is discussing joining the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). This is an effort to engage 12 states, plus the District of Columbia, in an agreement to cut emissions and create cleaner energy. PPA supports that goal. What we do not support is how we get there.
Make no mistake: TCI means a gas tax increase in Pennsylvania. Consumers will pay from 17 to 31 cents more for gasoline per gallon and the cost of diesel fuel will go up by 52 cents per gallon, according to one study.
What is worse is that both could automatically increase each year based on what an entity outside the state decides. There is no other way to pay for this effort; it will fall on you, our members, and consumers.
At a recent Senate hearing, PennDOT and PADEP stated the Wolf Administration does not support an increase in vehicle fuel taxes.
These state agencies are, however, justifying TCI by stating the fee placed on wholesalers and distributors may or may not increase the price of fuel. Most industry observers believe it would be highly unlikely that companies would absorb a gas tax of this size.
Our state already has the second highest gas tax in the nation. We have no doubt this could cause motor fuel distributors and suppliers to lose business and cut jobs.
Everyone will be hurt; businesses on the borders will see more competition from fuel companies in other states that won’t join TCI and therefore have a lower gas tax.
PPA also is concerned about an unresolved question: which level of the fuel distribution chain will be responsible for securing credits on the cap and trade auction?
Credits are needed to legally sell fuel exceeding the annual cap of emissions permitted by the regional commission established by TCl.
The goal of this effort is to “de-carbonize” the transportation sector by financing the transition from traditional motor fuels to electric infrastructure.
PPA is actively fighting against TCI. We are reminding the governor he has said he will not increase the gas tax. In our efforts, we already are garnering support from lawmakers and launching a campaign to educate the governor, elected officials, the media and consumers on how onerous this would be for Pennsylvania.
We also want to build alliances with other organizations that oppose a gas tax increase.
We have created a website, NoNewPAGasTax.com, and social media– Facebook and Twitter— to get out our message.
We hope you will share our information on your own social channels.
And we will be working on other forms of communications to get out information about the tax boost and business cost hike that TCI will cause.
We would be happy to get your feedback on the website and your thoughts on the campaign. We also may be reaching out to you directly for further assistance in combating TCI.
Thank you for your support; we will keep you posted as we move forward. This is a critically important issue for all of our members.
Sincerely,
Ted Harris
Executive Vice President
Pennsylvania Petroleum Association
John Kulik
Executive Vice President Emeritus
Pennsylvania Petroleum Association
