Democrats are aware that high gas prices are hitting Americans in the pocketbooks, and there is broad recognition that this is a major midterm liability. None of the proposals are likely to get through Congress. Lawmakers have thrown out some ideas.
Six governors, five of whom are up for close reelections, asked Congress to step in this week to temporarily suspend gas tax collections, but little suggestion of traction in Congress. A group of vulnerable Senate Democrats proposed this idea before Russia invaded Ukraine, but McConnell shot it down because he wanted to make the political games transparent. A group of Democrats, led by Sen. Whitehouse, floated legislation that would impose a windfall tax on the profits of big oil companies. Consumers would get quarterly gasoline rebate checks. Republicans are hard to see going along with things like that. The odd bipartisan alliance of farm-state lawmakers are calling for boosting the production and use of bio fuels. 16 lawmakers are pushing the idea. Major oil refining interests do not want to see more expansion of the biofuels industry. There was a mess during the Trump administration. Republicans have pushed legislation on a number of items that were their priorities long before Russia invaded Ukraine. There are a number of ideas that the bills would attempt to revive, including the revival of the Keystone XL line, approval of liquified natural gas exports, and the restart of drilling on federal lands. Republicans have wanted these policies for a long time. Democrats will not go along with it.
There is a lot of talk about gas prices, but it is not going to lead to legislative success. There have been no serious proposals to date that could garner sufficient bipartisan support.
The president and Congress have less impact on gas prices than they think. Reminder here.
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