Shorter queues at the pump, more tax

US states are rolling out fresh gasoline taxes at a time when US road fuel demand has already gone flat

For the first time in 14 years, the US state of Ohio will hike gasoline taxes this summer, joining a wave of similar increases from Arkansas to Alabama. Long denied sufficient funding for road repairs from the federal government in Washington, state-imposed gasoline taxes are meant to plug budgetary gaps, but may have a knock-on effect by further constraining the growth of US gasoline demand. For the second year in row, US gasoline consumption failed to make any progress in 2018, flattening out to just under 17.2 quadrillion Btu. More broadly, despite a recovery from the deep lows of the Great Recession, US gasoline demand still sits just below the all-time highs, set far back in 2006, of 17