Wealthy People Working for Justice? Michael Gast’s Map of an Unprecedented Movement
Exploring the burgeoning movement to organize the rich for our common good.
Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) recently introduced legislation to increase the excise tax on private jet fuel. Representative Nydia Velazquez (D-NY-07) introduced complimentary legislation in the House. The Markey-Velazquez proposal would raise the existing excise tax from 22 cents to a $1.95 per gallon.
This would effectively levy a $200 tax on every ton of carbon emitted by a private jet. The tax would not apply to commercial flights or smaller private planes that use aviation gas.
Under the Markey-Velazquez plan, the revenue from the tax would go to the Airport & Airway Trust Fund and a newly created federal Clean Communities Trust Fund to support air monitoring for environmental justice communities and long-term investments in clean, affordable public transit across the country, including energy-efficient bus routes and passenger rail near commercial airports.
How much additional revenue would this tax raise?
According to the Federal Aviation Administration’s annual Fact Sheet on the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, the current tax on non-commercial aviation fuel (other than Avgas) brought in $202 million in 2022, up from $164 billion in FY2021. Markey’s legislation proposes to increase the tax by 8.9 times. Without any behavior changes or tax avoidance, the new tax would raise an additional $1.6 billion, or $1.8 billion overall.
Of course, we do hope, for the sake the earth, that the increased excise tax leads to behavioral changes and that the wealthiest people on the planet fly their private jets less frequently.
