The Brief

Homeowners in Los Angeles have started the long process of rebuilding after the destructive wildfires in January. Some are constructing homes that are much less likely to burn when the next wildfire hits. That's because California is one of the few states with building codes that require using fire-resistant materials in places prone to wildfires.

Still, thousands of other homeowners in the urban center of Altadena are about to rebuild without wildfire-resistant materials, because they live outside a state-designated wildfire zone.

For some of those people, the rebuilding requirements are about to change in the coming months.

California fire officials just released long-awaited maps that expand the areas where wildfire building codes apply and that show fire risk is only increasing. Under the new maps, an additional 1.4 million acres statewide is now considered at high or very high risk on land for which local governments are responsible.

In the footprint of the Eaton Fire that hit Altadena, the expanded zone for wildfire building codes now includes more than 500 additional homes and buildings, according to an analysis by NPR. Los Angeles County must adopt the new zones by late July, which means those property owners have roughly four months before the more stringent rules take effect.

The move is a rare example of a community strengthening rebuilding rules after a disaster, in the hope of preventing similar destruction in the future. Governments often loosen construction and permitting rules after disasters, facing immense pressure to speed up the rebuilding process.

Patrick and Ruth Fong's home burned home still shows signs of the toys their kids used to play with. After late July, rebuilding it will require meeting wildfire building codes, based on new state regulations.

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Research shows fire-resistant construction can dramatically improve the chances that a house survives. Many of the building materials are commonly available, like fiber cement siding, and overall, construction costs can be roughly the same as a standard house.

Still, even with the newly expanded zones, more than 7,800 buildings in the area burned by the Eaton Fire fall outside those zones and won't have to follow the more protective wildfire building codes. Wildfire experts say with so many houses to rebuild, Los Angeles is facing a critical moment to ensure communities are better prepared for future disasters. Wildfires are getting more intense and are spreading faster as the climate gets hotter, and across the Western U.S., many homes rebuilt after fires aren't constructed to withstand future ones.

"If homes are being rebuilt, they should be built with wildfire in mind because unfortunately we do know that risks are increasing," says Kimiko Barrett, senior wildfire researcher at Headwaters Economics, a non-profit think tank. "History repeats itself. This will not be the only time that L.A. experiences a catastrophic wildfire."

Weighing how to rebuild

When Patrick and Ruth Fong look over the charred debris that used to be their Altadena home, they still see where their three kids used to play. The burned frames of the kids' bikes are visible under the crumbled garage door. A blackened, metal ring in the backyard shows where the trampoline once was.

"This is the only house our kids remember," Ruth says. "We were only able to recover some mugs and the kids' clay objects they made in art class at school."

Now, two months after the disaster, they're also starting to envision what could be. They've met with a contractor to plan what they'll rebuild and are now finalizing the floorplan.

"There's been so much grief and sadness, but then you have some glimmers of hope," Ruth says.

Ruth and Patrick Fong debated whether to stay in Altadena after they lost their house in the Eaton Fire. It's the second time a wildfire has burned the property.

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Just after the fire, the Fongs weren't sure they wanted to stay. Altadena sits next to the dry shrubland of the San Gabriel Mountains and this was the second wildfire to hit their property. Before the Fongs owned it, the Kinneloa Fire also destroyed the home in 1993.

"We had in our heads, we have to build it and sell it, because what if it happens again?" Patrick says. "You know, all these terrible things we're thinking about."

But like many Altadena residents, the Fongs feel connected to their community and especially close to neighbors on their cul de sac. So, they've started talking to their contractor about ways to make the house better able to withstand a wildfire by using fire-resistant building materials. That cost has to be balanced with the other financial constraints of rebuilding, as the Fongs figure out how far their insurance settlement will go.

"With fireproof construction, how much more is that going to be and how much can we really afford?" Patrick says. "Because we're already maxing out our policy."

Newly expanded fire zones show homes at risk

Like thousands of other Altadena residents, the Fongs so far are not required to rebuild with fire resistant materials. That's because California's wildfire building codes, known as "chapter 7A," only apply in areas that are deemed to be at risk. Those "wildfire hazard zones," as they're known, are mapped by California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

California's wildfire hazard maps are the bedrock of the state's wildfire policies. In addition to determining where wildfire building codes apply for new construction, property owners in very high risk zones must clear flammable vegetation around buildings. Wildfire hazard zones must also be taken into consideration in land use planning by local governments, including ensuring there are enough evacuation routes.

The maps were first released in 2008, putting California on the forefront of wildfire planning. Many Western states still lack statewide fire risk maps. But as wildfires have become more extreme, fire experts pushed California to update the maps, since the original maps only forecast fires under fairly weak wind speeds and don't take into account high wind conditions that can drive bigger infernos. (Insurance companies typically have their own wildfire risk maps that they use to determine rates for customers.)

The newly released wildfire zones include properties that burned in the Eaton Fire. Pacific Palisades, where the other major fire burned in January, was already in a high risk wildfire zone, so wildfire building codes apply to the more than 6,800 buildings destroyed there.

Under state law, Los Angeles County must adopt the new wildfire hazard maps by July 22nd. According to the Los Angeles County Fire Department, that means if residents in the newly expanded zones get their building permits approved after the maps are adopted, the wildfire building codes will apply.

Beginning in 2026, the requirements will expand again to include any properties in the "high" hazard category of the wildfire maps. That will mean about 1,000 additional properties in the Eaton Fire area will be required to use wildfire building codes, if their permits are approved next year.

Still, even with the new wildfire maps, the majority of homes destroyed in the Eaton Fire won't be required to be built to resist future wildfires. California's maps calculate the hazard from fires spreading in wildland areas, but don't take into account what happens when fires spread from house to house.

"I thought the very high fire severity zones were really going to reach deep, deep down into Altadena, and they haven't," says Los Angeles County Fire Department deputy fire chief Albert Yanagisawa.

The costs and benefits of wildfire building codes

The change in the maps is causing some nervousness in Altadena.

"Some people I see rushing to decide what their rebuild is before that map comes out, which puts into question whether they're thinking about the community or their bottom line," says Nic Arnzen, a member of the Altadena Town Council.

Researchers have shown that using fire-resistant materials makes homes less likely to burn, especially since most homes are ignited by tiny embers carried by the wind. Even in an extreme wildfire, fire inspectors find some houses remain seemingly untouched, like in the Los Angeles fires as well as the wildfire in Lahaina, Maui.

One study found houses built with California's wildfire building codes are 40% more likely to survive. An analysis by FEMA found using California's building codes could save $24 billion in damages to single-family residences over a 75-year timeframe.

California's wildfire building code calls for fire-resistant roofs and siding, as well as using attic vents that don't allow embers to be blown inside a house. It also calls for enclosing roof eaves so the undersides are less prone to igniting. They only apply for new construction or when houses have a major renovation.

Altadena is likely to face more wildfires, experts say, so rebuilding after the Eaton Fire is a crucial time to make the community more resilient to fires.

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"These are often materials commonly used on the market, widely available," Barrett says. "Things like asphalt roofs. Things like Hardie plank fiber cement siding. Very, very common, very affordable."

The additional cost of meeting the codes can be a few thousands dollars, according to a study from Headwater Economics and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, a research group funded by the insurance industry. Adding even more fire-resistant features, or more costly options like metal roofing, can add up to 13% to the overall construction cost.

Some Los Angeles homeowners could find the additional costs will be paid by their insurance company, if the policy specifies it covers bringing a house up to code. Still, not all policies cover those costs.

Los Angeles County officials say they're looking for funding options for homeowners who might struggle with the costs.

"One of the commitments I've made is looking at grant opportunities to see where we can allow people to apply that may not be able to afford it, to harden or do things that would benefit in case of future fires, and see how we can offset the cost," says Los Angeles County supervisor Kathryn Barger.

Rebuilding Los Angeles with wildfires in mind

With a history of frequent wildfires, Los Angeles has long understood how vulnerable many neighborhoods are. Some homeowners rebuilding after the Eaton Fire aren't likely to follow wildfire building codes if they're not required to, especially given that some are underinsured.

"Even if they're not going to have to comply, we're going to be strongly encouraging it for future resiliency," says Amy Bodek, director of regional planning for the County of Los Angeles. "We've been on this trajectory to look at long range plans that will prevent future disasters from affecting so many people. We're certainly not going to prevent the disasters, but how can we minimize strategically the harm to individuals and properties?"

Los Angeles County recently limited the amount of housing that can be built in the foothills of Altadena, where wildfire risk is highest. The region is facing a massive housing shortage, but considering the fire risk, is directing development to denser urban corridors closer to public transit.

Altadena officials say they're hoping to rebuild a much safer community, including putting electric power lines underground so they pose less of a risk. Utility lines have started wildfires in high winds and are still being investigated as a cause of the Eaton Fire.

"We have an opportunity to show people how to create a community that can live in peace and harmony with the natural disasters around them," Arnzen says. "I don't want to waste the opportunity."

Brent Jones contributed to this story.
Copyright 2025 NPR

A couple who paid nearly $15,000 in monthly rent while displaced by the Eaton Fire are now taking their landlords to court, alleging they violated bans on price gouging in the wake of a disaster.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, during the same week the county is set to end its post-fire rent gouging protections.

Over the last 16 months, state prosecutors have filed a handful of criminal rent-gouging charges. But the couple’s lawyer, Josh Nuni with the People's Law Project, said to his knowledge this is the first civil rent gouging case filed by private citizens following the January 2025 fires.

“They want to get back the money that was taken from them, and they also want to make sure to send a message to others that this shouldn't be done to other families when they're in times of crisis,” Nuni said.

How the alleged rent gouging began

Candy Renick’s home in Altadena was left standing after the Eaton Fire, but it was severely smoke damaged. Until it could be professionally cleaned, it would remain uninhabitable.

Renick said when she started looking for temporary housing, she quickly realized thousands of other families were competing for the same listings.

“I started feeling pretty desperate, like I needed to move on something fast,” Renick said.

Less than two weeks after the fires, Renick and her daughter spotted a new Zillow listing for a three-bedroom home in Glassell Park. She said the landlords were asking for $12,990 per month on a one-year lease.

When Renick and her husband asked for a shorter, six-month lease, the owners agreed to a higher monthly rent of $14,938.50, she said.

“I was telling friends what we were paying and everybody was like, ‘Are you kidding? That is crazy,’” Renick recalled. “But we had to do it… We were just kind of desperate to get settled so that we could move on with our lives and move on with fixing our house.”

Candy Renick stands outside her family's home in Altadena.

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How rent gouging laws worked 

Once the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted on Jan. 7, 2025, state and local governments quickly passed emergency declarations that triggered price-gouging bans. These laws made it illegal for landlords to increase rents by more than 10% from pre-fire levels.

For properties that were not listed for rent before the fires, a different limit applied: Landlords offering furnished properties could not charge more than 165% of the area’s fair market rent, as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For the ZIP code where the Glassell Park property is located, the legal monthly limit for a furnished three-bedroom unit was $5,032.50. The Renicks paid nearly triple that amount.

A warning letter and a short text exchange

Shortly after moving in, the Renicks got a letter from the L.A. City Attorney’s Office, according to the lawsuit. It alerted the tenants and the landlord that the listing may have violated post-fire rent gouging bans.

The letter said if the landlords were violating the law, they should “immediately lower the rental rate” and “refund the tenant the overcharged amount plus 10 percent interest.”

According to the lawsuit, the Renicks texted a screenshot of this letter to their landlord, Catalina Chow, and she responded: “We did not increase rent due to the state of emergency.”

Her text went on to say, “I hope this does not apply to me. Thanks for sending anyway!”

When LAist called Chow to ask about the lawsuit, she picked up but said she was on another call and ended the conversation. LAist was later unable to reach her or Terrence Chow, another defendant named in the complaint.

LAist also contacted the City Attorney’s Office to ask why it did not pursue the case beyond the warning letter. No one from the office responded.

Why tenants are taking cases into their own hands

Tenant advocates have expressed disappointment over what they see as a lack of price gouging prosecution in the wake of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

By the one-year anniversary of the fires, a group called The Rent Brigade had found more than 18,000 listings that appeared to have broken the law. The group found that few criminal charges were ever filed, and laws that allowed private citizens to file their own cases and gave county departments the ability to fine landlords directly went largely unused.

Chelsea Kirk, a founding organizer of The Rent Brigade, said tenants like the Renicks are taking action on their own because governments failed.

“Tenants should never have been put in the position of having to enforce disaster protections themselves,” Kirk said. “After thousands of reports and virtually no meaningful action from the city attorney or county and state agencies, people have realized they can’t rely on government enforcement to protect them from exploitation.”

What the plaintiffs say they want

The Renicks returned to their Altadena home in November after it was professionally remediated. The complaint alleges they paid $95,758 more than what should have been legally allowed during their stay at the home in Glassell Park. The lawsuit asks the court to award damages, civil penalties and attorney’s fees.

Candy Renick said money was not the primary reason she and her husband decided to file the case. Any overpaid rent they manage to recover will largely go back to their insurance company, she said.

Instead, Renick said, she hopes the lawsuit sends a public message.

“People should not tolerate being overcharged for rent again, especially when they're in a very difficult situation,” she said. “And landlords need to know they can't take advantage of people in a crisis.”

A federal judge has declined to temporarily block President Trump's executive order that calls for restricting voting by mail.

The ruling released Thursday by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump nominee based in Washington, D.C., leaves in place — at least for now — an executive order on voting that tests the limits of the president's power under the Constitution. A separate, 2025 executive order on voting was halted by courts.

The latest executive order, issued March 31, calls for the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state, and to send those lists to state election officials. It also calls for the U.S. Postal Service — a federal agency that's independent of a president's administration — to come up with lists of eligible voters and to only deliver mail-in ballots to people on those lists.

"The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws. Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted," Nichols wrote about the decision not to block the order.

Nichols' ruling comes as another federal judge is preparing to issue a ruling in the coming weeks for a similar set of lawsuits based in Boston.

Since Trump signed the order, it's been unclear whether and how it would actually affect mail-in voting, which has been taking place for state primaries in this year's midterm election. In early May, the administration said in a court filing that federal agencies were still deliberating how to carry out the order. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche later told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the Justice Department is working with other agencies to "make sure" the order's goals are implemented.

Democrats, voting rights groups and almost two dozen states, plus Washington, D.C., have filed five lawsuits challenging the order.

They argue that Article I of the Constitution gives state legislatures and Congress — not the president — the power to set rules for federal elections. Their lawsuits also contend that Trump's order directs USPS to make rules about election mail that would overstep the mailing agency's authority.

Trump, who himself voted by mail in Florida in March, has said he issued the order to stop illegal voting by noncitizens in federal elections, which reviews and research have found to be incredibly rare. While there are voters across the partisan divide who rely on mail-in voting, more registered Democrats than Republicans say they voted by mail in the last national election in 2024.

The new court ruling on Trump's order comes out of the three lawsuits filed in federal court in D.C. A decision on a similar request to block provisions of the order may come out of the two Massachusetts-based lawsuits as soon as early June.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Law enforcement officers will be banned from interfering with California elections under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wednesday, just in time for the June 2 primary election.

The law, which takes effect immediately, criminalizes the act of taking cast ballots from the custody of a local election official, as gubernatorial candidate Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco did earlier this year when he seized more than 600,000 ballots from his own county’s registrar of voters. Although Bianco claimed he was checking for proof of fraudulent voting, there was no evidence to suggest any ballots were cast improperly.

“We have to step up, and we have to draw the line. We have to clarify the rules of engagement,” Newsom told reporters before signing the legislation. “It’s a warning to the folks out there that think they can do the bidding of the Trump administration.”

State lawmakers originally introduced the measure, Senate Bill 73, to guard against potential federal interference with California’s elections, given the Trump administration’s animosity toward the state and the president’s desire to keep Congress in GOP hands.

But Bianco’s decision to seize ballots turned a hypothetical threat into a real one, spurring legislators to seize the moment and rush the bill through so it could take effect before Election Day.

The new law makes it illegal for a county registrar to surrender ballots or voting equipment to law enforcement agents such as Bianco or his deputies. Riverside County Registrar Art Tinoco would have violated the law by allowing the sheriff’s department to take the ballots, despite the search warrant they presented.

“Voters should never wonder whether ballots were improperly handled,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, one of the bill’s Democratic coauthors and a former Santa Cruz County registrar. “And law enforcement powers should never be misused in ways that jeopardize the integrity of our democratic process.”

The law also reiterates that the attorney general, secretary of state or local county elections officials can sue any person, business or entity that takes “a package containing ballots” from an election official’s custody.

Election and voting advocates praised the Legislature for responding quickly to what they say was an “unprecedented” act of local law enforcement seizing ballots from an elections office.

“That never happened anywhere in the country before,” said Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. She added that the Legislature’s decision to push for this law shows voters “they are aware that something unprecedented has taken place.”

Legislators included safeguards in the law that allow the attorney general and secretary of state in some circumstances to override the authority of a county election official — such as if a registrar permitted armed personnel to stage near polling places.

Those override privileges are pointed, preemptive maneuvers likely spurred by the threat of a rogue county election official such as Shasta County’s embattled registrar of voters, Clint Curtis. The self-proclaimed “elections integrity advocate” lived in Florida and had no experience administering elections before the county board of supervisors appointed him registrar in 2024.

Lawmakers are seeking to ensure state officials are “able to override a local effort to undermine the state's rules,” Alexander said. “This is not the first time the state is being responsive to events happening in Shasta County.”

Curtis has aligned himself with 2020 election deniers, publicly expressed skepticism about voting machines and significantly reduced the number of ballot drop boxes in the county. He faces several accusations of workplace violence and harassment, including threats to drag staffers out of his office by their hair. Curtis has denied all accusations.

The new law also prohibits any individual from allowing any law enforcement agent to “access, disrupt, modify or take possession of” any voting technology without a court order.
Another provision prohibits election observers from challenging voter signatures. Last fall, the U.S. Justice Department, at the request of the California GOP, announced it would send election observers to California for the special election on Proposition 50, which sparked fears that President Donald Trump was meddling in an effort to change the outcome.

Ballot seizure is just one way outside actors could interfere with California’s elections, Alexander said. Another is the state’s lengthy ballot counting process, which has fueled conspiracy theories and baseless claims that the results should not be trusted.

Advocates are pushing Newsom to include about $55 million in the state budget for county election offices to buy new equipment and hire more staff to speed up counting.

Newsom told reporters Wednesday that funding negotiations are “very, very positive” and “we’re going to land on a number very, very shortly.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

President Donald Trump has called for a temporary waiver of the federal gas tax, which costs drivers 18.4 cents per gallon.

It's one of several attempts to relieve pain at the pump as voters grow increasingly frustrated with gasoline prices, which have hit four-year highs thanks to the oil trade disruption triggered by the war with Iran.

A national gas tax holiday would require an act of Congress. Lawmakers have floated the idea, with several bills introduced before Trump called for a temporary pause on the tax.

But even with the president's backing, it's not clear whether his proposal will make it to the floor for a vote. Gas tax holidays are controversial, with advocates arguing they provide quick relief and with critics denouncing them as costly and even counterproductive.

Here's what you need to know.

How much would a federal gas tax holiday save? 

At most, waiving the tax would save drivers 18.4 cents per gallon, or $2.76 on a 15-gallon fill-up. The national average price for a gallon of gasoline is now $4.46, up from around $3 prewar, so the relief would make up for only a fraction of that price spike.

But there are two reasons that drivers might save even less. First, some of the tax savings might instead go toward refineries and gas stations. That's especially true for a shorter holiday, says Kent Smetters, the faculty director at the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which researches the cost of public policies.

"What we generally think is that over long periods of time, most of the tax cut would go to consumers," he says. "But over shorter periods of time, suppliers — even though it's fairly competitive to sell gas — they still have some market power." And that market power means they could hike their prices a little bit, eating into those tax savings and keeping some of the benefit for themselves.

Penn Wharton estimates that about 13.2 cents a gallon in savings would actually reach consumers; Adam Hoffer, the director of excise tax policy at the Tax Foundation think tank, estimates it's about 16 cents.

And second, waiving the gas tax can increase demand for gasoline; that's the natural result of lower prices. That could worsen the supply-demand imbalance that's driving prices up.

A pause on the federal gas tax alone probably isn't large enough to send demand soaring. But Patrick De Haan, an analyst with the app GasBuddy, told NPR this spring that if states widely suspend their own gas taxes, that could push demand — and prices — back up.

That's because state taxes are usually much higher than the federal tax. The amount varies by state — from 9 cents a gallon in Alaska to 70.9 cents in California. On average, states tack on an extra 33.3 cents per gallon.

A handful of states have already cut or paused their gas taxes. Kentucky lopped 10 cents off in May. Georgia completely froze its gas tax in March for two months and has extended its freeze as the conflict with Iran continues.

The price of a gas tax pause

While waiving gas taxes may save drivers a bit at the pump, it means less money for keeping roads safe.

Revenue from the federal gas tax goes into the Highway Trust Fund, which is used to pay for interstate construction and repair, as well as to invest in mass transit. Revenue from state gas taxes is often used for local road repairs.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that when Georgia paused its tax for two months, this cost the state about $361 million.

"Now we're talking real money," Smetters said.

That's less funding available to the state for repairs. "Anytime you take away a source of funding for highway construction and maintenance, then you're running the risk of the roads getting worse and not better," said Rob Bhatt, an insurance analyst at LendingTree, which recently issued a report about the condition of U.S. roads.

Drivers feel the pain of poorly maintained roads in very familiar ways: in potholes and dips. Patrick Marshall, a music teacher in New Orleans, wasn't watching close enough one morning and hit a dip that nearly broke a wheel off his 1989 GMC Sierra. The incident cost Marshall $2,500 and resulted in a 10-block walk to work.

"It's a tough hit to take when it's an unexpected expense," Marshall said.

(Well, not that unexpected — at least not in a city infamous for rough roads. When Marshall leads his students on brass and drum lines through New Orleans' streets, they know to shout warnings of "Pothole!" loud enough to eclipse the trumpets and French horns.)

All those pothole-related damages add up: AAA estimated that damage from potholes cost drivers some $26.5 billion in repairs in 2021.

Overall, this month's LendingTree report, which was based on federal data from 2024, found that 8.9% of the nation's road miles are in poor condition. Rhode Island scored the worst, with 31.5% of road miles rated as poor, with California and Massachusetts coming in second and third at 27.0% and 24.5%, respectively.

Minnesota stood out as the most improved between 2019 and 2024 — the state reduced the share of road miles rated as poor by more than 60%. But nationally, the report didn't find much improvement at all over that five-year span.

And even drivers in Rhode Island, the report's lowest-rated state, say potholes are bad everywhere. "I hit a pothole in New York City about a month ago, though that literally took life out of me," said Rhode Island resident Carleen Quattrucci.

The bigger problem: The gas tax is broken 

Here's even more bad news: The federal gas tax hasn't collected enough money to fully fund highway construction and repairs for years. And that fundamental problem is only getting worse.

It wasn't always like this. The gas tax was based on the premise that the people who use highways the most should pay the most for their upkeep. And the more miles a driver puts on their car, the more gasoline or diesel they purchase, so the more tax they pay — no toll booth required.

From the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, that worked well, says the Tax Foundation's Hoffer.

"The revenue from gas tax collections was sufficient to cover all federal highway road construction and maintenance expenses," he says. "So the drivers were paying for the roads to be maintained and more roads to be built, when they drove on the roads. It was a terrific system."

But the last time the gas tax was raised was in 1993. It was 18.4 cents a gallon then; it's 18.4 cents a gallon now.

Yet since 1993, the cost of road repairs and construction has risen — and the price of gasoline has tripled.

"It's a weird tax," says Smetters, because it's not pegged to the price of gasoline, so it doesn't rise with inflation.

Meanwhile, new vehicles have gotten more fuel efficient, and per capita miles driven per year peaked 20 years ago. That means the government collects less and less with the gas tax.

Now, the tax falls short of the highway fund's needs every year. For 2026, the shortfall is estimated to be $17 billion. Congress has to keep making up the gap with general taxpayer funds.

Raising the federal tax wouldn't fix the problem for long 

Hypothetically, the national tax could be increased. After all, many states' gas taxes are set to raise automatically.

One problem: "Nobody likes gas taxes. Politicians don't like them. Drivers don't like them. Voters don't like them," Hoffer says. "So increasing these taxes is a real political challenge." That's even though higher gas taxes do have benefits. For example, by discouraging driving, they cut down on carbon emissions, which improves air quality and human health. And a well-designed gas tax is a fairer way of paying for highways than drawing from the general tax pool, Hoffer says.

But there's another problem: Gas taxes make less sense as more drivers choose electric vehicles. EVs use roads and highways, so they add to the wear and tear on infrastructure. But they don't burn gasoline. So as EVs make up a growing share of vehicles, even a significantly higher gas tax would be doomed. It would bring in less money over time, because fewer drivers would pay it.

Many states have imposed EV registration fees to address this problem; the federal government is also considering adding one. However, because EVs still make up a very small share of vehicles, this doesn't come close to addressing the gas tax shortfall. Also, in many cases the fee for EVs is — or would be — much higher than the typical driver pays in gas taxes, creating an unfair system. Other potential solutions are being debated too. A lobbying group representing major automakers is pushing for a fee that all car owners would pay based on vehicle weight, so trucks would pay more than sedans. Heavier vehicles are harder on roads.

Some states are experimenting with road-user fees, which drivers pay based on how many miles they drive. In some cases, the programs use odometer readings; in others, they rely on devices or phone apps to measure miles driven. While economists say they're a fairer way to collect revenue — because, like with a gas tax traditionally, the people who use roads the most contribute the most toward their upkeep — those plans can raise privacy concerns, depending on the technology used to track miles driven.

Smetters, of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, also points to congestion fees and toll lanes as alternative funding mechanisms.

None of these ideas has yet caught on as a replacement for the federal fuel tax. But one thing is clear: At some point down the road, this tax is going to run out of gas.
Copyright 2026 NPR