As Republicans continue battling for their U.S. Senate nomination, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico is rolling out his own campaign promises targeted at lowering costs while taking aim at the Trump administration’s war in Iran.

At a gas station in Austin Tuesday, Talarico unveiled a proposal to lower fuel costs by suspending the federal gas and diesel tax until average prices drop to where they were before the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. Last week, in front of a private jet hangar in Houston, he announced a plan to “close billionaire loopholes” by auditing the ultra wealthy, restricting offshore bank accounts and barring business owners from writing off luxury purchases like private jets and yachts — measures he argues would generate billions in additional annual revenue that could be used to cut taxes for middle class Americans.

“In the last election, Americans were promised lower prices,” Talarico, an Austin state representative, said Tuesday. “And in the year since that election, everything has gotten more expensive.”

As fuel prices soar amid the ongoing war in Iran, Talarico on Tuesday called for lifting the federal gas and diesel tax until prices return to where they were before the conflict began in February, citing estimates that higher gas prices driven by the war could cost average households $740 more this year. Suspending the tax, his campaign said, would save drivers $200 each a year and long haul truckers $4,000 each a year while also reducing costs for shipping and farms.

“Americans in the last election voted for two things: To end the forever wars and to make life more affordable,” Talarico said. “But the people in power have done the exact opposite. Texans need relief. Americans need relief.”

The federal motor fuel tax is set at 18.4 cents per gallon of gas and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel, and primarily funds federal highway and mass transit programs. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, estimated that a monthlong gas tax holiday would cost the federal government $3.5 billion while a six month holiday would cost $21 billion.

Marsha Anderson Bomar, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a trade group, argued that a federal gas tax suspension would be unlikely to show up in savings for drivers since the taxes are collected at the distribution level — but would diminish needed infrastructure revenue.

“The intent is good, but it doesn’t work out the way people think it will, which is for the reductions to show up at the pump so that it helps the individual motorists be able to afford fuel prices,” Anderson Bomar said. “But the harm to the infrastructure program can be pretty significant. Those dollars are not collected, and it means that you have less to invest in critical infrastructure.”

To ensure savings reach consumers, Talarico’s campaign proposed “empowering the Department of Energy and Federal Trade Commission to prevent price gouging and ensure companies pass on the savings from the tax suspension.”

Talarico also pushed for an end to the war with a deal that “takes troops out of harm’s way and lowers prices at home,” and his campaign argued for an “all-of-the-above” approach to bolstering American energy independence by investing in oil and gas, nuclear, wind, solar and geothermal energy.

Talarico has centered his campaign since its launch in September around a populist, “top vs. bottom” pitch targeting the influence of billionaire political donors and taking power back for working Texans.

His announcements over the past two weeks drill down on how he would make good on that promise. The plans build on “anti-corruption” proposals he backed during the primary to ban super PACs, partisan gerrymandering, congressional stock trading and presidential pardons while imposing term limits on members of Congress and stricter ethics rules on Supreme Court justices.

Last week, Talarico vowed to help “fix our corrupt tax system” by ensuring billionaires “pay their fair share.” He proposed measures including closing the “carried interest loophole,” which allows investment managers to claim a lower tax rate by treating capital gains as profit rather than income; ending the “buy, borrow, die” loophole whereby the ultrawealthy skirt taxes by borrowing against their wealth to access tax-free cash flow; and restricting offshore bank accounts that Talarico’s campaign said lead to more than $100 billion in annual lost revenue.

“We can close these billionaire tax loopholes,” Talarico said. “We can make billionaires pay their fair share so that we can cut our taxes.”

While noting that the roughly 37% tax rate billionaires pay today is about half of what they paid in the 1980s, Talarico said he did not have a goal tax rate in mind but wanted “to ensure that the wealthiest people, the luckiest people in our economy are contributing to the success of the rest of us.”

Talarico is rolling out his policy plans while waiting to see which Republican he’d face in the general election. After neither cleared a majority of votes in the March 3 election, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton are facing off for the Republican nomination ahead of the May 26 runoff.

Republicans have attacked Talarico for his progressive social views and sought to tag him as too liberal for Texas.

“James Talarico is a radical liberal whose high-tax policies mirror those in failed states like California and New York, and that dog won’t hunt in Texas,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said in a statement. “Senator Cornyn supports pro-energy, pro-business, pro-taxpayer policies like the One Big Beautiful Bill, which included massive tax cuts to benefit all Texans.”

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