With the national average price of regular gasoline reaching $11.40 per gallon on Monday, the Department of Energy launched a public-awareness campaign rebranding pedestrian travel as “Walking,” described in agency materials as “a fully unlocked, zero-subscription mobility solution available to most Americans at no additional cost.” A companion app, Walking+, will offer turn-by-turn directions for $4.99 per month.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy on Monday formally introduced Americans to their legs.
The announcement came at a Rose Garden press conference attended by approximately sixty journalists, three members of Congress, and one man who had walked there from Bethesda and was visibly pleased about it. Energy Secretary Patricia Holloway stood behind a podium branded with the campaign’s tagline — “WALKING: It Was Always Installed” — and explained to reporters that the human body had, in fact, come equipped with bipedal locomotion capabilities since birth, a feature the department acknowledged had gone largely uncommunicated at the federal level.
“The legs were always there,” Secretary Holloway said, reading from prepared remarks. “We simply hadn’t activated them.”
She added that the campaign represented no change in policy, no new appropriation, and no modification to existing law. The department was, in her characterization, “surfacing a legacy mobility asset” that had been available to the general public “for some time, potentially millennia.”
The backdrop for the announcement was, by any measure, conducive to new thinking about transportation. Regular gasoline reached $11.40 per gallon overnight, driven by a combination of refinery disruptions, a speculative futures squeeze, and what analysts at Goldman Sachs described in a research note as “vibes.” Premium fuel crossed $14. Diesel, which the note did not address, was listed at participating truck stops as “market rate,” with market rate defined locally by whoever was holding the nozzle.
The Product Launch
The department’s 47-page Walking implementation guide, distributed to press ahead of the announcement, describes the program in the language of a software product launch. Walking is characterized as “a fully unlocked, zero-subscription mobility solution available to most Americans at no additional cost,” with a noted exception for “users requiring assistive devices, in which case certain hardware investments may apply.”
A companion application, Walking+, launches Thursday on iOS and Android. For $4.99 per month, subscribers receive turn-by-turn pedestrian directions, a daily step summary described as “non-judgmental,” and access to the “Terrain Alerts” feature, which notifies users of hills. The free tier of the app provides a compass and the word “go.”
Walking Pro, the premium tier at $14.99 per month, includes a curated selection of branded accessories. The department declined to enumerate them in full but confirmed that shoes are included.
“Shoes represent a meaningful quality-of-life upgrade for the Walking experience,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consumer Mobility Craig Fenwick, who was asked directly whether the federal government was now charging for footwear and answered the question in a way that suggested he had been briefed not to answer the question.
Industry Pushback
The announcement did not go uncontested.
Ford Motor Company and General Motors filed a joint complaint with the Federal Trade Commission within four hours of the press conference, alleging that the department’s campaign constitutes unfair competition with the automotive sector. The complaint, reviewed by this publication, argues that characterizing an alternative transportation method as “free” and “always available” places undue downward pressure on vehicle demand and amounts to, in the language of the filing, “a thumb on the scale of a market that has historically operated on the reasonable assumption that Americans would not use their bodies.”
A Ford spokesperson, in a statement, said the company “respects the department’s mandate” but noted that walking “does not have a 0-to-60 time, a heated steering wheel, or a 36-month financing option,” and encouraged consumers to weigh those factors carefully.
General Motors declined further comment but was understood to be monitoring the situation.
Health Insurance Responds
The health insurance industry moved swiftly to clarify its position.
In a joint statement issued by Aetna, UnitedHealth Group, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, carriers reminded Americans that walking, while technically possible, is not a covered activity without prior authorization. Patients wishing to begin a walking regimen were advised to schedule a consultation with their primary care physician, obtain a referral to a mobility specialist, and submit a prior authorization request that, the statement noted, “may take up to 45 business days to process, during which time stationary behavior is recommended.”
The statement also confirmed that injuries sustained while walking without authorization would be treated as out-of-network events.
A spokesperson for the industry group, the Health Insurance Association of America, said the carriers bore no animus toward walking as a concept. “We support mobility,” she said. “We simply have concerns about unsupervised mobility.”
Treasury Proposes Pedestrian Levy
At the Treasury Department, officials confirmed they are developing a framework to address the fiscal implications of the campaign’s success.
A working paper circulating inside the department proposes a per-mile pedestrian levy, structured to offset anticipated declines in federal gas-tax revenue as consumers adopt Walking as a primary commuting method. The proposed rate, described as “nominal,” would be collected via geofenced smartphone tracking or, for users without smartphones, “an honor system to be determined.”
A Treasury official, speaking on background, said the levy was still in early design stages and that the department was sensitive to the optics of taxing ambulatory motion. “We’re aware of how it sounds,” the official said. “We’re working on how it sounds.”
Asked whether any revenue from the per-mile pedestrian tax would be used to repair sidewalks, the official said that was outside Treasury’s jurisdiction and suggested the question be directed to the Department of Transportation, which did not respond to a request for comment.
At the Rose Garden, Secretary Holloway closed the press conference by taking three steps away from the podium, pausing, and turning back to the microphone.
“That was Walking,” she said.
The assembled journalists wrote this down.
The man from Bethesda applauded.
Walking+ is available for download beginning Thursday. Walking Pro requires a credit card on file. The Department of Energy confirmed that the human body, the underlying platform, remains free of charge, “for now.”