A bill to suspend the federal government’s 18.4-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax through the end of 2026 has gone nowhere in the House, more than a week after Republican leadership let a floor vote slip away rather than force one. Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, introduced the measure on September 15 with backing from President Trump, framing it as relief for drivers and truckers facing high pump prices. Instead of a vote, the bill sits referred to the Ways and Means Committee, with House Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledging Republicans could not agree on how to proceed.
H.R. 10392 stalls in committee, not on the floor
Trump floated the idea of a temporary gasoline-tax pause in May, months before any bill existed, and House Republicans spent the summer deciding whether to turn that suggestion into legislation. Harris became the lawmaker who did, choosing mid-September, a stretch of unusually high pump prices, to introduce the measure and ask leadership for floor time before the pre-election schedule closed. That timing put the bill’s fate in the hands of a chamber that had not yet agreed among itself whether to bring it up at all.
The bill, H.R. 10392, was introduced by Harris on September 15, 2026, with Reps. Clay Higgins of Louisiana and Randy Fine of Florida as cosponsors, and was referred that same day to the House Committee on Ways and Means, according to the official bill record on GovInfo. Its text would temporarily suspend the federal excise taxes drivers already pay at the pump, 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel, for the remainder of 2026. No committee markup or floor vote has followed that referral in the more than a week since.
Harris tried to force the issue the same week he introduced the bill, tying his vote on an unrelated procedural rule to a promise of floor time for the gas-tax suspension. That leverage collapsed on September 15, when two Democrats crossed over to help pass the rule 214-211 without him, according to Roll Call’s reporting on the standoff. Speaker Johnson told reporters afterward that “there wasn’t consensus” inside the Republican conference on whether to bring the suspension to a vote, a comment Roll Call quoted directly in its account of the failed push.
The CPA Practice Advisor’s September 24 update on the standoff found the same result nine days later: the bill remained parked in committee, with House GOP leaders giving no indication a vote was coming before the chamber’s next extended break. That gap between a headline-grabbing introduction and an unscheduled committee referral is what makes the bill’s status “stalled” rather than simply “pending.”
Inside the kit: A stalled 18.4-cent gas-tax suspension leaves fuel costs exactly where they were before Harris introduced H.R. 10392, and that pressure lands on the same household budget as property tax and utility bills that already have real relief programs attached to them. The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit lays out the five kinds of property-tax relief, the circuit-breaker credit that includes renters, and help with heating, cooling and home repairs. Open The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
A bipartisan idea that has stalled twice in the same committee
Harris’s bill is not the only gas-tax pause pitched to Congress in 2026. Rep. Josh Harder, a California Democrat, introduced his own Gas Prices Relief Act on April 29, with Rep. Kim Schrier of Washington as a cosponsor, proposing the same kind of gasoline tax holiday months before Harris’s version existed. That bill, too, was referred to Ways and Means and has not advanced to a markup or a floor vote in the five months since.
Two different parties, two different bill numbers, and the same outcome: a proposal that polls well as a talking point about pump prices stops moving once it reaches the committee that would have to account for the lost revenue. Neither bill’s committee referral has been followed by a scheduled hearing, and Ways and Means has not published a markup date for either one as of this week.
Roll Call’s reporting on the September standoff noted that gas-tax holiday bills have “seemingly all stalled out” in 2026 regardless of sponsor, a pattern this year’s two competing versions fit exactly. That repetition is itself part of the record: a idea Republicans and Democrats have each floated on their own has not produced a single committee vote from either party’s leadership.
What the tax funds, and why suspending it needs an answer leadership has not given
The 18.4-cent gasoline tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax are the federal government’s primary funding source for highway and transit spending, collected at the pump and forwarded to the Highway Trust Fund rather than sitting in general revenue. Suspending either tax for the rest of 2026, as H.R. 10392 proposes, would cut off that revenue stream for the suspension period without the bill itself naming a replacement source, which is the kind of open question a committee referral is meant to resolve before a vote is scheduled.
That unanswered funding question is a more concrete explanation for the stall than partisan gridlock alone. Both the Harris and Harder bills ask Congress to give up a dedicated highway-funding stream during a stretch when neither chamber has passed a broader transportation funding bill, and Ways and Means has not indicated it is prepared to take up either proposal until that larger question is settled.
For drivers, the practical result is that the 18.4-cent and 24.4-cent taxes remain in effect at the pump today, exactly as they did before Harris introduced his bill on September 15. Whether that changes before the House returns in November, as Roll Call’s reporting flagged as the next possible window, depends on whether Ways and Means schedules action neither party’s leadership has committed to yet.
A stalled gas-tax bill leaves other household costs where they were
H.R. 10392 would suspend the 18.4-cent gasoline tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax through the end of 2026, but it has not moved past a committee referral, and the taxes remain in effect at the pump. That leaves fuel costs unresolved alongside the property tax and utility bills that make up the rest of a household budget, several of which already carry relief programs that require an application rather than an act of Congress.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit covers the five kinds of property-tax relief, the circuit-breaker credit that includes renters, and help with heating, cooling and home repairs, organized by what each program requires to apply.
See the five kinds of relief in The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Money Overview editorial team.
