Why Cutting the Federal Gas Tax Might Not Help Drivers Much

June 2022

CBS News

Severin Borenstein, Faculty Director, discusses the federal gas tax on CBS News.

“‘People are not going to notice 18 cents in the ups and downs of national gas prices — it just won’t be enough that they can identify it,’ said Severin Borenstein, director of the Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. The price cut ‘would take a few weeks to pass through, and by the time it did oil prices would have gone up and down…An 18-cent change in the retail price of gas corresponds to a shift in the price of oil of about $7 a barrel…It’s not unusual for oil prices today to move by $7 a barrel in one day.'”

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