You may not have noticed, but a couple of extra pennies were added to the gas tax last week.

Governor Andy Beshear tweeted on March 1st that because state lawmakers failed to act, the gas tax went up $0.02.

You may remember that last summer, amid soaring prices at the pump, Bashir issued an executive action to freeze it.

I talked with Andrew McNeal, a former deputy state budget director and senior fellow with Blue Grass Institute for Public Policy Solutions.

He says the General Assembly should enact an 18 month freeze on the gas tax.

Providing time, he says, for what he calls the broken road fund formula to be overhauled.

Andrew McNeal with BEPS, as we call it for shorthand, thank you for a few minutes of your time to talk about the gas tax freeze the governor Andy Beshear, had by executive order issued this freeze that would keep this $0.02 from going up.

But that time has lapsed.

Can the Kentucky General Assembly still act?

There is time for the General Assembly to act, and it's going to take an action by the General Assembly to give Kentuckians certainty that the gas tax isn't going to increase on them.

It has increased already to this point, according to the governor's social media, by virtue of a broken road fund formula that has certain mechanisms in there for it to adjust.

As you said, the governor used executive action to suspend a gas tax increase that would have happened in July, but that executive order has expired.

It appears, as the governor announced last night on his social media accounts, that the gas tax has gone up by $0.02.

So when he did that, of course, gas prices were much higher than they are right now.

Many will say it's just $0.02.

Does it really matter?

What say you?

Well, I certainly think that it matters that taxes have been raised on Kentuckians in this way.

This road fund formula is decades old.

It is broken.

A tax a tax increase has just happened without a vote of the legislature, without the signature of the governor on a bill.

It's only $0.02.

But you know, we could see gas prices spike again this summer.

We can see that Kentuckians are again paying at the pump prices that are troubling.

And I simply think that's a better way to approach this, is to freeze the gas tax statutorily and temporarily so that the legislature can begin examining this broken road funding formula and bring forward recommendations on how to fix it in the upcoming or the 2024 session.

And that's a good point, Mr. McConnell, because I was just going to say all the bills have been filed.

We do know there are several shell bills where they can be used as vehicles for legislation to do what you suggested.

Are you optimistic that could even happen this session?

And 23.

It can happen if the legislature has the will to follow through with taking this step to protect their constituents.

This is a revenue measure.

There are often, as you know, Renee, of various cleanup measures that go through the session near the end of the session, where they make some tweaks to various tax policies.

This can find a home in an appropriate bill.

It's a very short provision.

It could be written in about a sentence or two.

And if the General Assembly wants to do this, there's no reason why they cannot.

So final question.

We hear a lot from groups like Kentuckians for Better Transportation who complained about the governor's executive action back in the summer because this does affect, as you alluded to, the road funding, which goes to fund, you know, our roads and our bridges and if we don't like potholes, etc..

So what is the long term solution to making sure that we have enough money in the road fund in those coffers to make sure our highways and byways are safe for travelers and motorists?

Well, the General Assembly has appropriated a record amount of dollars and resources towards infrastructure and transportation over the last 3 to 4 years.

So there is a lot of construction activity going on in the state.

There is a lot in the pipeline to continue with those projects.

The long term solution and that's the reason why we're calling for only a temporary freeze of this formula is to take advantage of this and time to look at this formula to discuss the future of funding for infrastructure and transportation in this state, to look at electric vehicles, to look at possibly vehicle miles traveled, but do it in a way this summer in the interim so the various stakeholders can come to the table so that the taxpayers can be part of a transparent process at what they're going to pay for for motor fuels tax.

And so a temporary freeze or this interim.

There is a need for a long term solution, but let's do it out in the open.

Let's not have taxpayers paying more simply because of a broken road funding formula that has led to this automatic tax increase on Kentuckians.

Well, thank you, Andrew MacNeil, for your time and your perspective.

Thank you.