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Washington, D.C.—The head of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today applauded long-delayed action by the General Services Administration (GSA) to raise the mileage reimbursement rate to 55.5 cents per mile for federal workers who use their personal vehicles in the performance of their duties.

National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen M. Kelley has been seeking such a step from GSA since the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raised the rate from 51 cents per mile in 2011.

“With average gas prices at or approaching four dollars a gallon in some parts of the country, this overdue increase will make a significant and important difference in the travel costs of many federal workers,” President Kelley said. “While our hope was that this would have come earlier, I am pleased that, effective today, the increase is in effect,” she added.

While the IRS sets the maximum reimbursement rate, federal employees are limited to the rate set by GSA, which usually—but not always, and sometimes with a considerable lag time—extends a similar rate to the federal workforce.

In several letters to GSA, President Kelley pressed the need for an increase for federal employees, emphasizing that substantial numbers of them use their private vehicles day in and day out in their work. She noted, as well, that federal workers currently are in the second year of a two-year pay freeze, and are subject to the same economic pressures that are affecting other Americans.

NTEU’s earlier efforts on this issue played a role in the decision by the IRS in January, 2011, to boost the maximum rate by 4.5 cents per mile to 55.5 cents.

As the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers, NTEU represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.