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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nState lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis set aside $200 million in federal dollars<\/a> for the holiday, to reduce the tax rate on gas by 25.3 cents per gallon<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Floridians, according to Thursday data<\/a> from AAA, are paying an average of $3.39 per gallon, lower than the $3.61 consumers paid a month ago and far lower than the $4.89 per gallon price in mid-June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis will be a little bit of a respite and a little money saved on the gas tax,\u201d said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida\u2019s Institute for Economic Forecasting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s unclear how Hurricane Ian, which made landfall Wednesday and decimated southwest Florida as a Category 4 storm, may affect prices, but AAA says it is not likely that increased demand would cause pump prices to spike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had pre-staged 128,000 gallons of fuel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Price-gouging warning <\/p>\n\n\n\n President Biden has warned<\/a> oil and gas companies to not use Hurricane Ian as an excuse to raise prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I also want to say again to the oil and gas executives: Do not \u2014 do not \u2014 do not use this storm as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the American public,” Biden said Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden said his experts informed him that so far less than 2% of daily domestic oil production had been impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis small temporary storm impact on oil production provides no excuse, no excuse for price increases at the pump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If companies do raise prices because of the storm, Biden said he would ask officials to look into whether price gouging had occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAmerica\u2019s watching,\u201d he said. \u201cThe industry should do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, in anticipation of Hurricane Ian, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody expanded Florida\u2019s “Price Gouging Hotline” \u2014 1(866) 9NO-SCAM \u2014 to allow people to report instances of severe price increases on gasoline and other essential products. People can also download an app<\/a> to make reports online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Florida TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic M. Calabro praised DeSantis for the gas sales tax holiday, but he recommended it not be made permanent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis year, people all across the country encountered record high costs at the gas pump, but fortunately for Floridians, they will receive some much-needed relief,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If state leaders consider gas taxes in the future, Calabro urged them to \u201cbe conscious of the impact any permanent gas tax reduction could have on critical transportation infrastructure or bonds.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnything that could potentially compromise Florida\u2019s bond rating or the competitiveness that comes from having strong transportation infrastructure must be taken into consideration,\u201d Calabro said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the fuel tax in Florida is used to maintain the state’s roads and highways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Politics of gas tax holiday<\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSantis, who is running for re-election next month against Democrat Charlie Crist, has pledged to make some of his temporary tax breaks permanent. Last week, DeSantis proposed<\/a> a $1.1 billion package of what he called family-friendly tax breaks that he wants the Legislature to approve next year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSantis didn\u2019t mention more gas tax holidays in the portion of the package he revealed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Crist said the gas tax holiday should have been done a long time ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis could have started 11 months ago,” he said in a statement to USA Today Network-Florida. “For working class Floridians, that\u2019s money not in their pockets because of the political decision to hold it until the month before the election. Kind of a day late, dollar short at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crist had previously called<\/a> for the suspension of the state and federal gas tax, which he said would save drivers 45 cents a gallon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The $200 million tax holiday, which DeSantis boasts about<\/a> on his reelection campaign website, is being paid for through the American Rescue Plan, a federal law pushed through by President Biden that got no Republican congressional support. Nor did it get support from Florida\u2019s governor, who continually derides federal funds but still uses them to promote his own agenda in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSantis frequently touts<\/a> federally-funded plans without acknowledging the source for the money. The choice to schedule<\/a> the gas tax holiday in October, right before the election, raised some eyebrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don’t think you need to imagine too much to think that Florida legislators and the governor who are up for reelection are aware that motorists are going to get a break all the way through Oct. 31 with November elections not far behind,\u201d said Victor V. Claar, associate economics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also pointed out that gas prices were a lot higher months ago than right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo the sort of relief we’re going to get is coming a little late in terms of the arc of gas prices over the last several months, but don’t get me wrong,\u201d he said, \u201cI’m sure that Florida motors will appreciate not only a general decrease in gas prices, but also an additional decrease that will come in the form of the gas tax holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n October also offers a relatively low hit on tax revenues, he said, with less demand for gasoline when compared with more travel-heavy months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSantis had previously wanted to use $1 billion in federal aid to cover a five-month gas tax break, beginning in July. State lawmakers said the month was chosen because it\u2019s when Florida has fewer tourists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday marks the beginning of Florida\u2019s month-long gas tax holiday, which Gov. Ron DeSantis sought from the Legislature to save consumers some cash at a time of high prices \u2014 and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":55284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[1734],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55285,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55283\/revisions\/55285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}