Walz’s office praised the “sensible” gas tax increase and said it would “ensure the safety of Minnesotans.”
Tim Walz (cropped, Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
In his first weeks as governor, Tim Walz (D-M) proposed raising Minnesota’s gas tax by a whopping 70 percent. The increase was criticized as “highway robbery.” When inflation soared, Walz backed down and supported a suspension of the federal gas tax.
Walz’s first budget proposal, announced in February 2019, included a provision to raise Minnesota’s gasoline tax by 20 cents, from 28.6 cents per gallon to 48.6 cents per gallon. That 70 percent increase would have taken the state from the 29th highest to the fourth highest, placing it behind only Pennsylvania, California and Washington, according to the Tax Foundation.
“I have often said that a budget is not just a fiscal document – it is a moral document,” Walz said after presenting the proposal. “This budget reflects the morals of the people of Minnesota.”
His office called the increase “common sense” and said it would help “keep Minnesotans safe, help businesses and farmers get their goods to market” and prevent catastrophic infrastructure disasters.
But when pump prices skyrocketed amid historic inflation just three years later, Walz changed his mind on the gas tax. In June 2022, during his re-election campaign, Walz and five other Democratic governors penned a letter urging congressional leaders to pass legislation suspending the 18-cent federal gasoline tax through the end of the year.
Walz’s stance on gasoline taxes could prove a thorny issue for the governor as he enters the national campaign as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. The economy and stubbornly high consumer costs, including pump prices, have been consistently cited as the top issues for voters ahead of the 2024 election, recent polling data show.
“Walz said he wanted a moderate increase in the gasoline tax, and I think people were broadly in agreement with that,” said Isaac Orr, a Minnesota energy expert who Washington Free Beacon in an interview. “Then he comes up with a 20 cent increase in the gas tax. And people say: ‘That’s not what we voted for.'”
“The energy policies enacted by Governor Walz are more in line with the voters in San Francisco than those in St. Cloud,” Orr added.
During the 2018 election, a Walz spokeswoman stated that “the majority of Minnesotans support a modest increase in the gasoline tax,” the Pioneer Press reported.
Although his original proposal passed the Minnesota House of Representatives, Walz ultimately caved to pressure from the public and Republicans, one of whom called the proposal “highway robbery.” In May 2019, he signed a compromise budget supported by the Senate Republican caucus that eliminated the 20-cent gas tax increase entirely.
“One of our primary goals was to stop the gasoline tax increase, and I’m glad that Governor Walz and House Democrats ultimately listened to the people of Minnesota and rejected this approach,” said then-state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R).
In early 2023, however, Walz signed a budget that directed his administration to explore implementing a statewide clean transportation standard modeled after California’s current regulations, a measure widely supported by far-left environmental organizations.
As part of the budget, state agencies must consider a standard that would require reducing the overall carbon intensity of Minnesota’s transportation fuels by at least 25 percent below 2018 levels by 2030, 75 percent by 2040 and 100 percent by 2050. If implemented, the provision would be the most stringent of its kind in the country, according to the Great Plains Institute for Sustainable Development.
Walz’s measures amount to a “hidden gasoline tax that increases the cost of gasoline and diesel for families and businesses but provides no money for roads and bridges,” according to a policy brief published earlier this year by the Center for the American Experiment.
Also in 2023, Walz signed a transportation bill that increases the state’s gasoline tax annually starting that year. The exact rate of increase is tied to the economy-wide construction cost index, but is capped at 3 percent.
The Harris-Walz campaign team did not respond to a request for comment.
