“All this talk about dropping oil prices, and I’m paying just shy of $4.00 per gallon of gas at the pump.
Someone care to explain that to me.”
just to name a few:
1. Gasoline Taxes are in the +40 cents per gallon national average. http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/industry-economics/fuel-taxes/gasoline-tax
2. Environmental regulations are enormous and growing. These are not just federal but states like California cause huge costs which are passed along to consumer when up to 16 different gasoline formulations are mandated for seasonable blends.
3. The imposition on mostly federal rules such as no Keystone pipeline(which raises cost of transportation of gasoline) and keeping lucrative areas off limits from drilling(Artic, Eastern and Western seaboards, Western federal lands).
4. Renewable mandates. right now, most all gasoline is 10% ethanol which is not petroleum and hugely more expensive than petroleum gasoline. There are mandated requirements for these standards in spite it is much, much more expensive.
Just a few, there are more.
These are all good reasons for the price to be higher than it should be. I would only urge you to think in terms of the last 9 months though.
What were the prices last November? What were they at the low in February/March? What are they now.
Any factors like the ones you mentioned that were in place in November wouldn’t be the root cause for the price spiking back up now.
Thackney did come up with two good reasons, and you mentioned one of them yourself.
California’s new Global Warming tax $0.10 cents per gallon.
California refineries that have had recent problems affecting the supply, and thus the cost.