OPINION:
President Trump is set to host refiners and other various and sundry members of the oil and gas industry at the White House on Tuesday.
No doubt the president will ask, cajole and possibly push the invited guests to reduce gasoline prices before the November elections, even if such reductions cause them to lose money in the short run.
His argument will be simple and straightforward: A Democratic majority in the House or Senate or both serves no one.
That is true enough, but if Mr. Trump really wants to do something about the price of gasoline, he does not have to ask anyone or hector industry executives.
All he must do is suspend the Renewable Fuel Standard, the program that requires refining companies to blend into the gasoline supply an amount of ethanol and other bio-based fuels equal to about 10% of the total fuel consumed each year.
This government mandate, brought to you by the Bush administration, is like all other government attempts to “manage” the marketplace: a disaster. It winds up costing drivers more and giving them reduced performance.
The mandate is bad for engines in cars (and boats and lawn mowers), bad for the environment and a bad economic deal.
According to some recent economic analysis, the ethanol mandate costs drivers and their families about 45 cents extra per gallon at the pump. The total annual economic cost to the nation is about $90 billion.
In short, it is a tax imposed by the federal government that results in drivers shipping cash to corn growers. Like most other taxes, it is regressive, hurting those least able to pay: the poor, the elderly, those on fixed incomes and local institutions such as hospitals and schools.
If the Trump administration is serious about reducing gas prices more or less immediately, the president should do the right — and simple — thing and suspend the fuel standard. Gas prices would immediately drop, and that appears to be the purpose of Tuesday’s event.
While he is at it, Mr. Trump also should suspend the federal gas tax, currently set at 18.4 cents per gallon.
Taken together, these two federally imposed taxes on gasoline cost drivers about 63 cents a gallon. For context, with the federal gasoline tax set at 18.4 cents per gallon, the government makes more cash on each gallon of gasoline sold than the refiners, who, according to the Energy Information Administration, make less than 10 cents a gallon.
Suspending both the ethanol mandate and the gas tax would be a bold statement by Mr. Trump that he understands the economic burden imposed by the federal government on drivers and is committed to lessening it.
He would be hailed as a hero by drivers in cars and trucks all over the United States.
Unfortunately, the conversation within the administration to date has not been promising. Rather than suspending the ethanol mandate, some Trump staffers have spent the past few months diligently trying to figure out ways to make the mandate a little richer for the corn growers, up to and including just giving the farmers more cash.
No matter where they start, these ideas always wind up in the same place: transferring money from the pockets of drivers to the pockets of corn growers.
I do not know about you, but I know a lot more drivers than I do corn growers, so the electoral calculus associated with the ethanol mandate must hinge entirely on drivers not being aware of it.
I would bet that if drivers knew the president could knock down the price of gasoline by 63 cents per gallon tomorrow morning, they would want him to — or at least want to know why he has not.
Suspending the ethanol mandate or the federal gas tax, or both, is the only real and immediate option we have to affect what drivers pay at the pump. There is no third option.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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