Gas prices are generally higher in “blue states” (states that vote Democratic) than in “red states” (states that vote Republican). In fact, the lowest gas prices are in Wyoming, the home state of Dick Cheney!
Well, Colorado, South Dakota, Nevada, West VA, Ohio, and Indiana appear to have higher prices than Pennsylvania and Minnesota.
I expect it has more to do with local taxes on gasoline than politics.
Utah has cheaper gas because it has lower standards for the quality of gas (the lowest grade you can buy in CA is the middle grade in Utah), and it also has five oil refineries . Add that to the fact that Utah only as a population of 2.6 million (compared to CA’s 36.5 million) and it looks like Utah has some sort of special gas dispensation. Similarly, Wyoming has 5 refineries and only 500,000 people in the whole state.
Some states like California have laws that require specific (and expensive) formulations of fuels, and they also generally have higher fuel taxes. If there is any correlation at all it is likely self-inflicted.
There are all sorts of reasons why the average price of gas might be greater in blue states than red states. (This is assuming that it’s even true. Have you gone through the states carefully to check if this is really true?) Notice first that this map is of the average price of gas, not the average increase in the price of gas over the past several months or whatever. It could be that prices of everything are greater in blue states. It could be that the gas taxes are greater in blue states. Lots of other things could be affecting this (again, assuming that it’s even true).
Please tell me this is a whoosh…
Why is it a whoosh? I see a high degree of correlation here.
Except where there isn’t. If you disregard that then your theory is perfect. By the way I live in New Jersey. Generally lower than average gas prices. A very blue state.
So, how would this work? Bush, Cheney, and Rove in their evil war room pouring over gasoline distribution charts and yelling into the phone to “Tell that sumbitch in Wyoming” that he had better drop his gas prices or he will have him killed?
I think Airman Doors has it right- the “wholesale” price of a gallon of gasoline is roughly the same nationwide- I doubt that there’s much more than a nickel per gallon difference. If you look at the map, that’s pretty much true- the major jumps are pretty much along state boundaries, with the occasional county being out of the ordinary.
What makes the difference is the varying types (reformulated, LVP, etc…) and the taxes of the state in question, as well as relatively small differences (10 cents or so) due to transportation, etc…
By way of example, New York State has a 62.9 cent per gallon total state & Federal gas tax rate, but Texas only has 38.4, California has 60, Utah has 42.9.
So, all else being equal, California will have a gas price that’s 24.5 cents higher than Texas solely due to taxes, and New York will have one that’s roughly 21.6 cents higher.
Ultimately, it looks like blue states like to tax their citizens more than red states do, which seems appropriate to me.
Well, there has to be some advantage to living in New Jersey.
That is patently false. Quality and grade are independent of each other. The grade of a gasoline measures octane, while the quality measures… well, I’m not sure how to measure the quality of gasoline. Regardless, octane is lower in Utah because it is a higher altitude than California. With less air, there’s less oxygen, and the mixture will be lest apt to predetonation. Grade, or octane number, is defined as the resistance to predetonation. Although California probably has more stringent environmental standards and less refinery capacity per capita, the octane of gasoline you can buy in each is irrelevant. In fact, the octanes you can buy in Santa Fe and Albuquerque are generally different, and they’re only 45 minutes apart and about 1500 feet elevation difference.
I’m a bit paranoid, but Santa Barbara consistently has amongst the highest gas prices in the country. The environmental movement pretty much started here after the horrific oil spill of 1969. We consistently fight increased offshore oil production (although we just cut a deal that gave us a shitload of prime coastal property in exchange for additional drilling rights off the coast). I suspect the super high gas prices are in some way payback for our environmental activism and anti-drilling stance.
Since these are average prices, isn’t there a likely correlation between “blue” states (hate that term) and the presence of large urban areas. Those areas tend to vote Democratic and I think they tend to have higher gas prices anyway.
This may not be true at all, but I have assumed that the price of gas has something to do with the cost of living and wages in general. We tend to pay less for things in the South, but our incomes are less.
I don’t know if the same is true for the Midwest.
I live in Nashville which voted Blue, but our prices are still lower than average.
The PTB would have their hands full trying to punish the right people since states are not really red or blue, but shades of purple.
Looking at the map, I agree that taxes seem to be playing a role. For example, zoom in on North Jersey. The map is green right up the the New York border, and then it goes red.
I would say that this is a classic case of two apparently correllated phenomena, each the effect of a third factor.
In this case, it looks to me as though the third factor is that “blue states” are likely to contain a large percentage of liberals. So the state is more likely to vote for democratic presidential candidates and more likely to impose relatively high taxes on gasoline.
This is MPSIMS. How dare you bring facts into the thread!
Or it just could be the shitload of taxes your state puts on gas. A lot more likely than payback.
The narrow, winding, mountainous geography of the area might make transportation of gasoline (and anything else) into Santa Barbara unusually expensive, even within California.
State taxes aren’t a factor – gas prices in Santa Barbara are significantly higher than those in Ventura, only a few miles down the coast. I lived in Santa Barbara in the early 90s, and even then, the difference in price was significant enough that I always got gas in Oxnard or Ventura. Note that Oxnard/Ventura are in a different county than SB, so county taxes could be a factor.
There are also differences in price between LA and San Francisco; studies have attributed the difference, in part, to LA’s abundance of independently owned stations.