* Gov. JB Pritzker was asked today about his thoughts on the gas tax during this spring’s huge price spike…

Yeah, it’s a good question. First of all, Donald Trump has added about $1.50 a gallon to every gallon of gas that you fill your tank with, $1.50. It’s a war of choice that’s led to that. He took us into that war, he should get us out of that war. So that’s the very first and most important thing that we can do to lower gas prices.

I think, secondly, we in the state can look at doing what I already did a few years ago, which is to suspend the increase in the gas tax, the automatic increase, and look at other ways to lower gas tax, gas costs.

For example, I authorized E 15 as an additive in our state, that’s something that really hadn’t ever been done before. It lowers the cost of gasoline by about 15 cents a gallon, so that’s something that can be done.

And look, anything that we can do to lower the cost, the high costs that are being imposed on families across our state, to make sure that we’re addressing affordability, like lowering the cost of homeowners insurance, auto insurance, and the rest - those are all things that we’re focused on, but we for sure should be looking at what can we do to diminish the impact of high gas prices. We can’t do anything about ending the war here in Illinois, other than protest and make our voices heard, but what we can do is also consider the impact of whatever changes we make on building roads and bridges. As you know, we now are one of the best states in the country for infrastructure, but that’s because we’re making the investments that come from the motor fuel tax that gets imposed.

I think we can, we have enough here so that we could make some sort of pause. But I think that’s something the legislature is going to consider over the coming week. We’ll see.

Please pardon any transcription errors.