That's the natural thing you think of, but then you have the problem that a fuel tax is a regressive tax on the poorest - who are usually also driving less efficient vehicles because they're cheaper, so they're hit twice as hard. But, if you tax vehicles by size, then you run into the issue that a lot of working-class people need large trucks to do their work. It's a hard problem and I've been thinking about it for a while.

Thinking government can help is wrong to begin with. It can't, it can only get in the way. Perhaps electric vehicles and definitely smaller vehicles could've been more prevalent today without the CAFE rules. Other environmental rules prevent (or make prohibitively expensive, same thing) the mines in which rare earth metals for batteries for EVs are produced.

At least the federal EV mandates are gone now (my state's still exists though, sadly). That would've only driven up costs, meaning more people either would NOT drive EVs at all, or would be even more in debt then they are now.

Congress probably isn't functional enough to pull it off, but they could pass a regressive fuel tax and then make up for it with adjustments to income tax. E.g. adjust progressive tax brackets or the EITC.