The Gas Buddy map of gas prices nationwide bears a striking resemblance to the Red State/Blue State map of the 2004 presidential election. Generally, the most expensive gas is bought in the Blue states and the cheapest gas is bought in the Red states. Might state taxes and regulations have something to do with the price disparities?

The taxes are a very small percentage of the over $2.90 a gallon price. A gallon of gas was less than half of that when Bush took office.

In California, total taxes amount to 50 cents per gallon. That's almost 20 percent of the total cost of a gallon of gasoline. That's not a small percentage. And that's just taxes. How much more are regulations, such as ethanol additions and bans on gas drilling, costing consumers?

A good article addressing that very question is over at WSJ Opinion journal's Tuesday edition:
"Denny Pelosi: Gas prices rise, and Republicans panic"

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008286

In short, for anyone too lazy to go the link I just gave, the answer, in part, is this:

Thanks to government regulation, "As recently as last year, ethanol was selling for $1.45 a gallon. By December it had reached $2 and is now going for $2.77. So refiners are now having to buy both oil and ethanol at sky-high prices. In short, the only market manipulation has been by politicians.

I don't agree with the amount of gas tax in any state. Less than 30 cents per gallon in Mass and almost every other state except California hurts, but it is a small part of the problem. Point is if there was no gas tax, gas would be $2.70 a gallon, problem solved? There were taxes on gas in 2000 when gas was less than $1.40 a gallon.

Eliminating state and federal taxes on gasoline would cut 50 cents off the price per gallon in California. Problem solved? No. Problem ameliorated? Yes.

I agree with Dan re: taxes. But to go further, the larger problem is the immense regulations and controls placed on the petroleum industry that greatly constricts and slows the market forces that would solve the problem.

As Dan noted in his other post, we haven't built nuclear power plant since Chernobyl. That affects demand. We haven't built a new oil refinery in nearly as long, and have forced numerous shut-downs by every changeing envrionmental standards that necessitate large scale change-over of scrubbers and other processes in the refineries. That effects supply. Also effecting supply is the political failure to open up new oil drilling ranges off certain coasts, in ANWR, and in other inhabitable areas.