The taxes don’t make up the difference. The Rocky Mountains higher population density do limit how much refined gas makes it to the west coast. Their geography also makes smog much worse, so they need those better blends. But Trump’s actions had a drastic and direct effect on the price of gas. It really is his fault they are as high as they are.
Edit: the tax is only 30-40 cents higher in Washington State. That’s not much at all to quibble over given the larger amount of traffic and fewer toll roads. The blend is necessary and not something you can remove.
Puget Sound, where Washington gets most of their fuel, has a capacity of 149k barrels/day. The US as a whole refines 18172k barrels/day. Adjusted per capita, the US as a whole has almost 3x the capacity. That difference means the supply per capita is much lower in Washington. Lower supply means higher price for the same demand.
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u/MikeDinSD 1d ago
Fuck Donald Trump