Has the U.S. federal gas tax been unchanged for over 30 years? | Fact brief

The federal excise tax for gasoline has been unchanged at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 increased the federal gas tax by 4.3 cents, according to the Federal Highway Administration, and it hasn’t increased since then.

The federal gas tax began in 1932, when Congress imposed a 1-cent-per-gallon excise tax on gasoline sales as a Depression-era revenue measure signed by President Herbert Hoover.

Maine’s own state excise tax on gasoline has remained unchanged at 30 cents per gallon since 2012, according to Maine Revenue Services. 

Maine’s first gas tax — also originally 1 cent per gallon — took effect in 1923. It increased to 3 cents in 1925 and had reached 22 cents by 1999. Lawmakers added indexing based on inflation in 2003, but that was later repealed in 2012.