Sure but in the months before and the months after it was still between 1.80 and 1.50 per gallon.
Gasoline Price History
The tax needs to be adjusted for inflation.
But due to the higher gas prices, the feds are collecting more from the oil companies in the form of taxes. So the feds have more to invest in highway funds/infrastructure than they did when gas was only 99 cents/gallon. There should be no need to raise the gas tax as a result. Also, inflation does not explain an increase from 99 cents/gallon to $3.50/gallon in just twelve years.
What the feds (and states and local municipalities) collect is a constant fixed level; has nothing to do with what the final price per gallon at the pump is (with the exception that some states (Georgia is one) vary their tax on a sliding scale). So what determines that income is strictly the number of gallons sold. And if that number either goes down or stays level due to higher fuel efficiency, less driving, people telecommuting instead of commuting, etc, such income is going to fall behind the rising costs of road maintenance. Not rocket surgery.
That's exactly why some legislators have proposed a tax on mileage, where every vehicle would be monitored and taxed per X number of miles individually. Even though that would require retrofitting hundreds of millions of cars with spy devices and then people to maintain those devices ---- instead of just doing the no-brainer thing and raising the tax to where it works.
And no, it's not inflation causing prices to rise, it's demand worldwide, especially emerging engorging markets like China and India. That's why the President has no say in it -- the oil business is a worldwide profit-seeking venture. It's not subject to US legislation. Unless somebody wants to nationalize the oil companies and fly solo.