Not near so much as "big taxes" are. The truth is, politicians are just putting on a show pretending to care about fuel prices. The amount of money flowing into government coffers from taxes is even beyond a democrats wet dreams. But you won't hear politicians talk about rolling back taxes so to cap revenues. A proper sliding tax formula based on lets say a base price of $1 a gallon, should see tax percentages decrease as gas prices rize so as to keep a cap on tax revenues.
This would drastically lessen the impact of flutuating barrel prices on the consumer AND more importantly, our entire economy.
Wishfull thinking however. The government cares about niether, only about how much more money they can spend, pack pork onto bills which enrich their political donators.
At $0.184 dollars per gallon and 375 million gallons per day consumed (or purchased) the government take is about 69 million per day or over 25 billion per year.