Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Pay for the Infrastructure Bill With a Carbon Tax

Why aren’t senators considering a fiscally and environmentally sound way to pay for projects they all want?

June 16, 2021 at 1:30 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Better bridges and better air.
Photographer: Jeff Dean/AFP/Getty Images

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Even if negotiators in Washington reach an agreement on a package to improve the nation’s infrastructure, paying for it will prove a major obstacle. This week, a bipartisan group of 10 moderate senators has advanced a $1.2 trillion, eight-year spending proposal on roads, bridges, tunnels and other projects, and is trying to win over President Joe Biden, along with skeptics in Congress in both parties.

To cover some of the costs, the group proposes repurposing unused Covid-19 relief funds and tapping the owners of electric vehicles for revenue since they aren’t paying much in federal gas taxes. The senators are opposed to raising taxes on corporations — the centerpiece of the president’s plan to finance the spending.