A sign list prices at a convenience store in Bullhead City, Ariz., across the river from Laughlin, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. The price for regular gasoline is posted at $3.35 per gallon. In Laughlin, the price was $4.69 at a 76 gas station on Casino Drive.
Sunday, March 26, 2023 | 2 a.m.
BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz. — It’s not uncommon for Robert Bennett to cross the state lines to fill up the gas tank on his vehicle.
Bennett, a longtime Laughlin resident, found himself Tuesday among the many cars inching through the line for gas at the Sam’s Club off Arizona Highway 95. The resorts that overlook Bullhead City across the Colorado River in Laughlin are in direct view from where Bennett was filling his SUV.
“I’ve been here 32 years and it's always been cheaper to buy goods over here,” said Bennett, 61. “I come over here for everything, which is sad. You’ve got to get your food over here, you gotta get everything. If they had the services over there, I’d stay over there and our tax dollars would stay over there too.”
Bennett is one of the many from Laughlin who regularly cross the Nevada-Arizona border for cheaper gas. A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at that Sam’s Club in Bullhead City cost $3.14 per gallon Tuesday.
And across the river, at a 76 station off of Casino Drive, that same gallon of gas was going for $4.69. With a markup of $1.55 per gallon, that’s $23.25 in savings when filling up a 15-gallon tank. The cities are about 90 miles from Las Vegas.
“It seems crazy, but that’s Nevada,” said another patron waiting in the same Sam’s Club line, who asked not to be named. ìI never buy gas in Nevada. I always come on this side and buy gas anywhere here in Bullhead. Right now, I’m filling up because I have to go to Vegas tomorrow and I know with a full tank, I can make it back from there.”
Patrick De Haan, the chief petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a smartphone app that tracks and indexes local gas prices, said the answer to why fuel prices in Nevada are so expensive compared with Arizona — and most other western states save California — can be attributed to a few culprits.
The statewide average price for a gallon of unleaded gas was $4.22 as of Friday, according to AAA, nearly 80 cents more expensive than the national average of $3.44 and good for fourth-highest in the U.S. Another map on GasBuddy also shows every county of Nevada’s neighboring states — aside from California — boasting more affordable fuel.
Nevada gets the bulk of its gas from refineries in Southern California, De Haan said, and due to state regulations there, petroleum enrichment is subject to more stringent regulations that drive up prices. But most of Nevada’s neighbors get their supply from elsewhere, De Haan added.
“There can be abnormalities comparing your neighbors, because Colorado and New Mexico don’t get it from Southern California,” he said. “Utah, Arizona, all of your neighbors are getting it from somebody else.”
Supply chain woes since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have also wreaked havoc on gas prices over the past three years, De Haan said, adding that’s plagued markets not just in the U.S. but globally. That’s only been exacerbated by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and other international variables, like OPEC continuing to raise oil prices.
Domestically, oil drilling outfits here have been skittish to invest in new drilling operations, De Haan said. President Joe Biden last week signed a historic oil lease for a project in Alaska, backtracking on a campaign promise that he would forbid any new drilling on federal lands, but oil companies are largely skeptical whether beginning a new project would be a worthwhile investment.
“U.S. production today is at about 700,000 barrels a day, which is higher than where it was a year ago but it’s still below pre-COVID levels,” De Haan said. “And with the adoption of (electric vehicles) happening at a more accelerated pace, the fuel industry is going to be very careful in bringing additional production online.
“Why spend billions of dollars looking for oil and trying to get it to the market in the next three to five years if the market is going to greatly shift by itself as Americans start pushing toward EVs.”
Gasoline prices are displayed at the pump at a convenience store in Bullhead City, Ariz., across the river from Laughlin, Nev., Tuesday, March 21, 2023. The price for regular gasoline is posted at $3.35 per gallon. In Laughlin, the price was $4.69 at a 76 gas station on Casino Drive.
But another significant factor, De Haan claims, is Nevada’s tax on gasoline and diesel products. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Nevada imposes a 23 cents-per-gallon excise tax on gasoline and a 27 cents-per-gallon charge on diesel. That’s in addition to another 27.4 cents-per-gallon in other taxes and fees, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
Coupled with an 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax or 24 cents-per-gallon for diesel, that’s around 68 cents in taxes for every gallon of fuel purchased. That’s in addition to other county and local taxes. Clark County voters, in 2016, approved a “fuel revenue indexing measure” in which an additional tax on fuel is collected for road improvements and traffic-safety measures.
Arizona, meanwhile, only pays 37.4 cents per gallon in state and federal taxes, De Haan said. In Utah, that rate is 55.5 cents a gallon, and in California it’s 83.5 cents.
De Haan said Nevada’s high fuel tax could also compensate for the lack of state income tax and how it funds the highway and roads infrastructure fund, which ultimately translates into better roadways and smoother driving.
“Normally, Arizona prices would be much lower than Nevada simply because of that monumental difference in gasoline tax,” De Haan said. “When you’re talking about price differentials, the only thing that Nevada can really do is lower taxes.”
Some, like Mike Smart of Henderson, wish they would do away with the gas tax altogether. “You sit there and you read reports about how much the bloody state is getting from the casinos every month — they’re getting billions every year,” said Smart, who was passing through Bullhead City on his way to see friends. “Get rid of the gas tax and start spending less money.”
Gov. Joe Lombardo during his State of the State address in January proposed a yearlong suspension of the state’s fuel excise tax. But that can only be instituted if both chambers of the Nevada Legislature approved, said Elizabeth Ray, communications director for Lombardo’s administration.
Lawmakers in Carson City have requested a bill draft for Lombardo’s proposal, however, no such bill has been assigned a number, according to the state’s database.
In February, Lombardo and Clark County issued emergency declarations after a leak was discovered in one of the main pipelines that delivers gas to Las Vegas from California, bringing the operation to a halt so the leak could be remedied. Despite that hiccup, there seems to be no plans in the works to develop a new pipeline, said Stephen Miller, director of economic research for the Lee Business School at UNLV.
And that at least has the chance to spell trouble as the population across the Las Vegas Valley continues to grow.
“It’s a heavy investment, to diversify your supply,” Miller said. “I think we’re sort of stuck. On the other hand, our population forecast says we’re going to add around 700,000 people by 2040. So I think with more and more demand, we may be seeking other sources of supply.”
But even if the gas tax were eliminated, some lawmakers are skeptical that oil companies wouldn’t simply raise their prices to increase profits. In January, U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., introduced a bill seeking to give federal regulators tools to investigate potential price fixing in the gas industry.
The Fair and Transparent Gas Prices Act, if passed, would give the Federal Trade Commission the authority and resources to investigate large petroleum companies that could be engaging in market manipulation or price gouging, Cortez Masto told the Sun shortly after she introduced the bill.
Since, however, her legislation has remained stalled in the Senate subcommittee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
“Our families need relief at the pump,” Cortez Masto said. “The issue around gas prices was the No. 1 thing I heard from Nevadans.”
