[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S4396]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE GAS TAX

  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I will make a quick comment regarding the 
comments that the leader made on a repeal of the so-called gas tax of 
1993, the 4.3 cents.
  Well, I think that if you look back in history, when we passed that 
4.3 cents, after it was passed, the price of gas at the pump was 
actually lower than before we passed the tax. It is something called 
supply and demand, which I had thought the folks on this side of the 
aisle were particularly enthusiastic about. It is very clear that there 
are market forces at work here. Repealing the Federal 4.3 cent tax on 
gasoline of 1993 is certainly no guarantee that that is going to mean a 
4.3 cent lower price at the pump for the citizens of this country, 
unless someone is going to start mandating to private industry what the 
price of fuel is going to be that they sell.
  I point out, if we remember history, last year at this time, between 
the months of April and May, the price of gas rose about 6 cents a 
gallon because of greater use and higher crude oil prices in the world. 
During the middle of the summer and toward the latter summer, gas 
prices started coming down because of supply and demand. At the end of 
the year, in December, the price of gas in the country averaged about 
$1.16 a gallon. All of last year, in 1995, the price of gas at the pump 
for the whole year averaged the lowest it had been since we started 
recording the price of gasoline in real terms in this country--lower in 
real terms than it was per gallon in 1920.
  All of that, I suggest, has a great deal more to do with the price of 
crude oil in the world. The fact that we had about a 6- to 8-percent 
increase in heating oil production because of a colder winter, and also 
because of the fact that we are now driving faster because of actions 
of this Congress, when we increased the miles per hour people could 
drive, the speed limit, up to the higher levels that we now see 
throughout the country.
  So I just say that if anybody can guarantee that any time we reduce 
the gas tax it means a lower price at the pump, I think we would be 
willing to look at it. I do not think history proves that. I think we 
ought to know where we are going before we start off in what I think is 
a political direction.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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