AASHTO Journal, 4 September 2015
The average U.S. retail price of gasoline fell nearly 13 cents a gallon in the week ending Aug. 31 while diesel’s average pump price fell nearly 5 cents, as the two major motor vehicle fuels continued a persistent decline of recent weeks.
The price declines continue to cut fuel costs for households and businesses, and have easily absorbed additional excise charges on fuel many states have assessed to boost their infrastructure project funding.
The Energy Information Administration said after its weekly survey of fueling stations that the national average gasoline price was $2.51 on that date, about 26 cents below where it was at the start of this summer. The latest price was also 95 cents lower than a year earlier.
In addition, the EIA reported gasoline prices again falling in all U.S. regions, after an August Midwest price spike that occurred when a major refinery in Indiana temporarily cut production during an unplanned outage. That refinery has since restored operations.
The EIA said diesel’s national average price on Aug. 31 was $2.514, or $1.30 below the year-earlier level. Its sustained downtrend cuts costs throughout the supply chain, since most commercial trucks use diesel and truck lines add fuel surcharges onto freight shipments that they change based on the EIA’s pricing data.
The lower pump prices are a boon to households that burn gas or diesel in their passenger cars. The AAA motor club said gas prices around the big Labor Day vacation driving period are their lowest since 2004.
And the lower fuel costs come at a time when many states in 2015 and recent years have raised their excise fees on motor fuels as a user charge to increase funding for roadway projects. Wyoming, for instance, raised its per-gallon fees on both gas and diesel by 10 cents starting July 1, 2013.
This summer, the state Department of Transportation reported it received an additional $46 million in revenue for the first 12 months of that increase, while Wyoming cities and counties received $23 million in that period.
WYDOT said that extra money allowed it to do 16 more pavement preservation projects on roads around the state in the first year of the increase. The agency was launching 15 more this year and expected to perform 47 more in the next three years.
But those falling pump prices in the past year more than absorbed the increased fuel fees levied by Wyoming and other states. The latest average gasoline price in Wyoming, AAA said, was $2.77 a gallon as of Sept. 3, down from $3.61 at the same point in 2014.