Biden wants to suspend the 18.4 cents-a-gallon tax on gas and 24.4 cents-a-gallon on diesel fuel, administration officials say. Prices are averaging about $5 a gallon nationwide.
that also reveals the political toxicity of high gas prices in an election year.
Biden's energy adviser Amos Hochstein pushed back on Wednesday, saying consumers could save about 50 cents per gallon if Congress and the states heed the president's call. Biden's past efforts to cut gas prices — including the release of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve and greater ethanol blending this summer — have done little to produce savings at the pump, a risk that carries over to the idea of a gas tax holiday.
The president can do remarkably little to fix prices that are set by global markets, profit-driven companies, consumer demand and aftershocks from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the embargoes that followed. The underlying problem is a shortage of oil and refineries that produce gas, a challenge a tax holiday cannot necessarily fix.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell mocked the idea of a gas tax holiday in a February floor speech. "They’ve spent an entire year waging a holy war on affordable American energy, and now they want to use a pile of taxpayers’ money to hide the consequences," he said.
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