You've heard the pile of excuses why our gas prices are the highest in the nation. It has to be refined elsewhere and shipped back to the state at great expense, our gas taxes are too high, and the state has limited infrastructure to store and move gas.

But if you dig deeper, you'll find that many of those excuses are simply not true. The gasoline used in Southcentral Alaska is produced locally at the Tesoro refinery in Nikiski. It has a very short distance to travel, resulting in minimal transportation costs. And Alaska has the lowest gas taxes in the nation.

For example, state gas taxes and fees are 49 cents a gallon in New York, 48 cents a gallon in California and 37 cents a gallon in Washington. In Alaska, we pay 8 cents a gallon. Yet, all of these states have lower gas prices than we do.


While prices in Alaska are certainly affected by the small size of our market and the higher costs of doing business here, the difference between Alaska and the Lower 48 is clearly excessive. It is far greater today than it has been historically and there is no justifiable reason for this.

For years, Alaska's refinery margin (the difference between the wholesale price of gasoline in Alaska and the spot price of Alaska North Slope crude) was about 12 cents higher than the national average. But that has increased wildly. In October 2008, the last year for which this information was compiled, that difference was more than $1.40 per gallon.

Read more here: Lack of competition keeps Alaska gas costly: Compass | Alaska news at adn.com