Besides the BS taxes added to price of a gallon of gas, fracked oil is more expensive to extract and refine. Drillers must obtain a minimum price for that oil to even stay in operation. Larger and older existing operations can survive on prices of around $30/barrel. But newer operations that have a lot of up front expenditure have to have around $60-$65 to remain solvent. Startups its even more. Not long ago when the prices got too low many of these smaller operators were forced to pack it in. That was during Trump's first term. Then there are the refinery costs which also are not cheap these days. Upgrades and building new refineries is a huge capital investment. Most of our old refineries are not even set up to refine fracked oil.

I agree that many of the BS regulations are only adding to the cost of doing business. That is what caused several CA refineries to go offline and forced CA to import gas. Ridiculous. CA gas in the Bay Area had already hit $7/gallon before the Iraq action even started because of Newscum's bone headed green agenda. I do think however, that at the very least during times like this that the taxes on gasoline need to be temporarily suspended. That would help a little.