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Federal spending on surface-transportation infrastructure outpaces federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel. Increasing fuel efficiency means that fuel-purchase expenditures have dropped, so real revenue generated from these taxes has declined. A percentage tax on crude oil and imported refined-petroleum products consumed in the United States could fund U.S. transportation infrastructure.

We investigate the possibility of using a percentage tax on crude oil and imported refined oil products consumed in the United States to fund the nation's transportation infrastructure. This tax on oil could replace existing gasoline and diesel taxes and, potentially, other transportation taxes, such as taxes on airline tickets. The revenues from this tax could be used to fully fund federal infrastructure expenditures on highways, public transit, and aviation. The goal of this article is to raise the key issues associated with using an oil tax to fund U.S. transportation infrastructure, identify decisions Congress would need to make in designing such a tax, and outline some of the likely implications of adopting such a tax.

In March 2009, the RAND Corporation convened a small group of experts from the U.S. government, allied partner nations, the maritime industry, and academic organizations to discuss piracy in the modern era. Participants concluded that mitigating the complex nature of maritime crime requires the input of all stakeholders--state, national, private, and nongovernmental--and must embrace measures beyond the reactive deployment of naval assets

Louisiana has lost approximately 1,880 square miles of land over the past eighty years. Projections suggest that in a future without action, the next fifty years could result in the loss of 1,750 additional square miles of land area. As land loss continues, a large portion of the natural and man-made capital stocks of coastal Louisiana will be at greater risk of damage, either from land loss or from the associated increase in storm damage. We estimate the replacement cost of capital stock directly at risk from land loss ranges from approximately $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion with economic activity at risk ranging from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion in output. Increases in storm damage to capital stock range from $8.7 billion to as much as $133 billion with associated disruptions to economic activity ranging from an additional $1.9 billion to $23 billion in total lost output.