The Highway Superelevation and alignment standards that define modern road design are only as good as the funding that maintains them. For nearly seven decades, the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) has financed federal highway and transit infrastructure through a consumption-based tax on gasoline and diesel collected at the pump. This system worked when fuel consumption was predictable and growing. But as vehicle technology has evolved, the link between fuel purchased and road usage has broken. Electric vehicles, hybrids, and fuel-efficient gasoline cars all consume less fuel per mile, shrinking the tax base even as demand on the roadway network grows.
In February 2025, Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) reintroduced the Fair Sharing of Highways and Roads for Electric Vehicles Act, or Fair SHARE Act, co-sponsored by Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE), with Representative Dusty Johnson (R-SD) introducing companion legislation in the House. The bill aims to make EV owners pay into the HTF through upfront fees. While the intent of addressing the HTF revenue gap is broadly supported, the scale of the proposed solution falls dramatically short of what is needed.
The Highway Trust Fund’s Growing Insolvency Problem
How the Gas Tax Funds Infrastructure
The HTF was established in 1956 alongside the Interstate Highway System. It collects 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel, then apportions revenues to states for highway construction, bridge repair, transit, and safety programs. The tax is volumetric, based on gallons sold rather than fuel price. This matters because inflation has steadily eroded purchasing power since the last rate adjustment in 1993.
Three converging forces have pushed the HTF into structural deficit:
- Fuel economy standards have nearly doubled since 1993, meaning each vehicle pays far less tax per mile driven.
- EV adoption has accelerated sharply, with 1.18 million EVs sold in the United States in 2023 a 49 percent increase from 2022.
- Inflation has reduced the real value of the fuel tax by roughly 40 percent since its last adjustment, while construction costs for road projects have risen even faster.
The Scale of the Shortfall
According to the Eno Center for Transportation, the HTF ran a structural deficit of $17.8 billion in 2023. The Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2028, this annual deficit will reach approximately $24 billion. The HTF has relied on general fund transfers from Congress since 2008, with over $275 billion transferred from the general treasury to cover the gap between gas tax revenues and infrastructure spending obligations. No small, symbolic fee applied to a single vehicle category can meaningfully alter this trajectory.
What the Fair SHARE Act Actually Proposes
Two Fees at the Point of Sale
The Fair SHARE Act structures EV taxation through two mechanisms, both collected at the point of sale:
- A one-time fee of $550 on each battery module weighing more than 1,000 pounds intended for use in an EV, charged to manufacturers.
- A $1,000 tax on the sale of each EV when purchased by the consumer, collected by the dealer.
The combined effect is $1,550 in federal fees per new EV sold. The legislation explicitly excludes hybrid vehicles that still contain an internal combustion engine, meaning plug-in hybrids and traditional hybrids continue contributing only through fuel purchases even though they may consume minimal gasoline during regular operation.
The Rationale Behind the Bill
Senator Fischer noted that EVs can weigh up to three times as much as comparable gas-powered cars, creating disproportionately more wear and tear on roads and bridges. This is factually correct. Heavier vehicles cause exponentially more pavement damage per mile traveled through the fourth-power rule, which states that pavement damage increases with the fourth power of axle load. The principle that EV owners should pay their fair share for infrastructure upkeep is logically sound. The problem is that even if every EV sold carried this fee, the revenue generated would represent a minor fraction of what the HTF actually needs.
Why the Numbers Do Not Add Up
The Revenue Gap in Plain Numbers
Understanding why the Fair SHARE Act cannot solve the HTF problem requires looking at the actual arithmetic. The table below compares the revenue the bill would have generated in 2023 against the real HTF deficit.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| EVs sold in the United States (2023) | 1,180,000 |
| Fee per EV under Fair SHARE Act | $1,550 |
| Estimated annual revenue from the bill | $1.83 billion |
| HTF structural deficit (2023) | $17.8 billion |
| Revenue as share of deficit | 9.15 percent |
| Projected HTF deficit (2028, CBO estimate) | $24.0 billion |
Even if EV adoption continues growing rapidly, the fee structure would need to capture a much larger share of the vehicle fleet or impose significantly higher fees to close the gap. The bill as written simply does not generate enough revenue to meaningfully alter the HTF’s financial trajectory.
The Frozen Fuel Tax Problem
The most telling aspect of this debate is what the Fair SHARE Act does not address. The federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has not been adjusted since 1993. If indexed to inflation, it would stand at roughly 39 cents per gallon today. Raising the fuel tax is politically difficult because it affects every driver. Targeting EV owners, who represent a small fraction of the fleet, is far more palatable from a messaging standpoint. Yet the math is unambiguous: even a modest fuel tax increase on the entire driving population would generate far more revenue than a per-EV fee applied to a minority market segment.
Targeting Symptoms Rather Than Causes
The Fair SHARE Act addresses declining fuel-tax revenue per mile but does nothing to fix the structural mismatch between consumption-based taxation and actual road usage. Electric vehicle adoption is not reversible, nor should it be. The tax system must adapt to this reality. Proper Highway Alignment design and pavement preservation depend on steady, predictable funding streams. A system reliant on sporadic congressional transfers and one-time fees on a shrinking share of the vehicle fleet cannot deliver the reliability that state DOTs and contractors need for long-term planning.
A Real Path Forward: Usage-Based Revenue Models
The Case for Road Usage Charging
Transportation policy experts have converged on a different approach: shifting from consumption-based fuel taxes to usage-based road charges. A Road Usage Charge (RUC), also called a Mileage Based User Fee (MBUF) or Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax, charges drivers a per-mile fee for roadway use. This embodies the user pay principle that made the gas tax durable for decades. The key advantage is that a usage charge captures revenue from every mile driven regardless of what powers the vehicle. An EV driving 12,000 miles per year would pay the same as a gasoline car driving the same distance, achieving the equity the Fair SHARE Act pursues but at scale.
Washington State’s RUC Pilot Program
Washington State provides a real-world example of usage-based charging at the state level. The Washington State Transportation Commission has been assessing RUC since 2012. In testimony before the U.S. House Transportation Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, Executive Director Reema Griffith described the state’s year-long, 2,000-driver pilot test conducted in 2018 and 2019, which demonstrated that RUC can be implemented at scale with acceptable privacy protections. Under the Washington model, drivers receive gas tax credits during a transitional period when both systems operate in parallel. Privacy concerns were addressed through multiple reporting options including annual odometer readings, flat-fee permits, and GPS-based reporting with data protections.
What a Comprehensive Solution Requires
No single policy instrument can solve the HTF crisis on its own. Effective Highway Sound Barrier Masonry Walls and other roadside infrastructure depend on reliable capital funding streams. A comprehensive approach requires multiple elements working together.
- A federal transition to Road Usage Charging, phased in over five to ten years, with gas tax credits to maintain equity during the transition.
- A modest increase in the federal fuel tax indexed to inflation or construction cost growth to provide bridge funding while RUC infrastructure is deployed.
- Point-of-sale fees on new vehicles, including both EVs and high-emission ICE vehicles, structured to reflect pavement damage based on weight and axle configuration.
- Dedicated funding for state pilot programs to accelerate RUC implementation and resolve interoperability between state and federal systems.
The design of Curves Highway Alignment standards and other geometric road features requires sustained investment over multi-year horizons. Neither the construction industry nor the traveling public benefits from a funding system that lurches from crisis to crisis.
Conclusion
The Fair SHARE Act identifies a genuine problem: electric vehicles contribute little to the Highway Trust Fund despite using roads the fund maintains. The principle that all road users should pay their share is sound. But generating at most 9 percent of the current annual HTF deficit through one-time fees on a single vehicle category does not constitute a serious funding strategy.
The federal fuel tax has not been raised since 1993. The HTF has required over $275 billion in general fund transfers since 2008. EV sales are accelerating, fuel efficiency is rising, and construction costs continue to outpace general inflation. Piecemeal legislation that targets one element of the revenue problem while ignoring the structural mismatch between consumption-based taxation and road usage will not solve the HTF’s long-term insolvency. Usage-based road charging has been tested, validated, and proven viable at the state level. What has been missing is the political will to move beyond symbolic fees and toward a comprehensive, technology-neutral funding model that captures revenue from every mile driven regardless of power source.