Governments should stop making gasoline cheaper

Governments should stop making gasoline cheaper

Opinion















The oil market is screaming at consumers to rein in their use of fuel. Governments are doing everything they can to have us to buy, buy, buy. But there can only be one winner in this battle, and it won’t be our elected representatives — or us.

In March, just after the UK government announced a year-long cut in fuel duty, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas argued that governments were pursuing the wrong energy policies in encouraging, rather than curbing, fuel demand. He was absolutely right. Evidence of policy makers’ errors is mounting, yet they are doing nothing to correct their mistakes. If anything, they’re only making matters worse.

Pump prices for gasoline and diesel are hitting new highs around the world. In the US, gasoline topped $4 a gallon in all 50 states last week for the first time ever, and the peak driving season hasn’t even kicked off yet. National average prices for both gasoline and diesel fuel are above previous highs set during the oil price spike of 2008. In the UK, forecourt prices are setting new, unwelcome records, despite a 5-pence-a-liter cut in