Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) has just introduced legislation to considerably increase import tax taxes on personal jet fuel. Representative Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) has actually presented complimentary legislation in the House.
The colorfully called “FATCAT Act” (standing for Fueling Alternative Transportation with a Carbon Aviation Tax) would trek fuel taxes on personal jets from the present 22 cents a gallon to $1.95 per gallon. This would efficiently increase the cost to $200 per metric lots of personal jet CO2 emissions.
The legislation remained in part influenced by a report launched by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Patriotic Millionaires, High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up the Planet.
The report discovered that personal jets produce a minimum of 10 to 20 times more toxins than industrial aircrafts per guest. The most affluent 1 percent of air tourists are accountable for about half of all air travel carbon emissions.
Private jets do not pay their reasonable share of the expenses of running the air control system. Private jets comprise around one out of every 6 flights managed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) however contribute simply 2 percent of the taxes that comprise the trust fund that mainly moneys the FAA.
Private jet tourists are amongst the wealthiest individuals in U.S. society. The typical net worth of a complete and fractional personal jet owner is $190 million and $140 million respectively. The jet-owning oligarchy is extremely male, over the age of 50, and focused in the markets of banking, financing, and realty.
Tax income created by the FATCAT Act would be directed to the Airport & Airway Trust Fund and a recently produced federal Clean Communities Trust Fund to support air tracking for ecological justice neighborhoods and long-lasting financial investments in tidy, cost effective public transport throughout the nation—consisting of guest rail and bus paths near industrial airports.
“The 1 percent can’t free ride on our environment and our infrastructure at a discount,” said Senator Markey in a press declaration. “Billionaires and the ultra-wealthy are getting a bargain, paying less in taxes each year to fly private and contribute more pollution than millions of drivers combined on the roads below. It’s time to ground these fat cats and make them pay their fair share so that we can invest in building public transportation that communities across the country and our economy desperately need.”
