US Gas Is Artificially Cheap: What We Don’t Pay for at the Pump

California has some of the dirtiest air in the nation. Consequently, it has some of the strictest rules for gasoline, meaning it burns cleaner than it does in many other states. But cleaner fuels are more expensive.

Clean air requirements, combined with supply and refining constraints, make the price of California gas consistently among the highest in the nation. Turmoil in the Middle East is another factor that pushes up the global price of crude oil. Even though the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in California fluctuates around $4, some experts argue that $4 a gallon is much less than the real cost.

Watch an animated video, produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting, that explores the “external costs” of gas consumption–including the price of pollution and health problems caused by it:

Compared with other industrialized countries, the US has it cheap. The Economist notes that American consumers pay about half of what Europeans pay, which is up to about $8.50 per gallon (or $2.25 per liter). The media website Good has a nifty chart showing the disparity in prices across the Atlantic, and PBS’ NewsHour explains the effect Middle East turmoil has on the retail price of gas. While politicians on both sides of the aisle bicker about why gas is expensive, US Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., is one who explains the real reasons, and as Grist reporter David Roberts notes, he is lonely in doing so.

Even though reducing toxic chemicals in gasoline might make it more expensive, the Environmental Protection Agency argues that clean air provides long-term cost benefits. A recent study of the Clean Air Act showed “the public health and environmental benefits … exceed their costs by a margin of four to one.”

From 1990 to 2010, these regulations have prevented “23,000 Americans from dying prematurely … avert(ed) over 1,700,000 incidences of asthma attacks and aggravation of chronic asthma,” the EPA states. In the same two decades, it also prevented more than 4.1 million lost workdays due to pollution-related illnesses.

California is among the leaders in the US in implementing clean air regulations to limit pollution from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Its ambitious Global Warming Solutions Act aims to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to 1990 levels by the year 2020—goals similar to the United Nations’ Kyoto Protocol. And the state’s Air Resources Board will introduce the nation’s second pollution trading system, known as cap and trade, for greenhouse gasses on Jan. 1, 2012 (unless it can’t work out a lawsuit by October, as previously reported by California Watch). Under that system, if a company does not meet its pollution limits, it can buy a carbon offset, a promise to reduce pollution elsewhere.

But the market isn’t the only method the board is using to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases. In fact, the board estimates only one-fifth of the reductions will come from cap and trade. The other four-fifths will come from increased energy efficiency standards, improved recycling and composting programs, the highest standard for fuel efficiency in cars, and the state’s low-carbon fuel standard.

The cost of clean air programs may be high, but so is the cost of pollution. A 2008 study commissioned by CSU Fullerton’s Institute for Economic and Environmental Studies notes that the cost of air pollution for the greater Los Angeles region adds up to more than $1,250 per person per year.

For the Central Valley, where one-third of the nation’s produce originates, the cost is more than $1,600 per person per year. These costs include treatment for respiratory illnesses like asthma, which are disproportionately borne by children younger than 5, the elderly and minority populations. Other costs include lost workdays, missed school days and premature deaths.

But health effects are just some of the financial impacts of burning fossil fuels—gasoline and diesel fuel, in particular. Harmful air pollution can affect food and fiber crops. The US Global Change Research Program noted in a 2009 report on climate change that greenhouse gases can reduce crop yields for “soybeans, wheat, oats, green beans, peppers and some types of cotton.”

And the cost of oil spills? Some early estimates put the price of cleaning up the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico at up to $20 billion. Every year, states spend more than $600 million to clean up leaking underground gasoline storage tanks.

In the last three decades, businesses, states and the EPA have cleaned up 401,874 leaking underground gasoline storage tanks, with an estimated 93,123 more sites awaiting cleanup, according to an EPA representative. In 2010, the agency set aside $66.2 million in a fund for states to use for cleanup activities. The agency spends about $2 million to $3 million each year for cleanup on tribal land.

Although $4 a gallon may seem expensive, there are many social and environmental costs that Americans don’t pay for at the pump. While these costs are hidden, the cost to society is high.

Read the video transcript with source annotations on DocumentCloud:

 

 

This story was produced by California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate