Gasoline prices are reportedly on the decline. The AAA reported 3/19/’22 national average gas price at $4.26. California’s average price was $5.84 and Pennsylvania’s average was at $4.34.

The Seneca Nation’s price was $4.15. In Warren, it was $4.49 per gallon. This downward trend of gasoline prices coincide with the drop of the price of crude oil. Canada is our local refinery’s supplier of crude oil; price is established on a world wide basis.

We also know there was/is much grumbling about the higher gasoline prices.

The current gas price is tied to the current crude oil price, though the crude oil from which the current gasoline was made was purchased at a lower price. I was led to believe that “yes, refineries benefit when their gas price shoots up upon the rise of the crude oil price but refineries take a hit when crude oil prices drop and refineries have inventory of higher priced crude oil. It balances out.” It makes sense and it is probably true for other companies as well.

We also know our local refinery and its ancillary companies provide employment for many locals, with better than our average compensation which contributes to the local economy.

Plus, the United Refining Co. contributes to Warren’s Fourth of July Festivities and other worthwhile local causes. All of which, the locals enjoy.

However, its the 15-cent state and 23-cent national per gallon price differential that is difficult to accept. Who has not seen locally produced gasoline for sale at lower prices than prices offered here, adjacent to the refinery, in their travels? It appears to be Economics 101, “basic supply and demand: whatever the market will bear.”

Nearby Waterford with its lower gasoline prices seems to be in a different market; there, competition exists. It has been estimated that URC makes as much as 47 cents per gallon in Warren due to URC’s total control of the Warren market.

Warren’s gasoline prices are among the state’s highest and the Warren area is economically depressed with 14% of the residents living below the poverty line. Gasoline prices are an important item in the family/business budget.

Subsidizing (supporting an activity with outside money/assistance) occurs when parents assist with the down payment for a child’s purchase of a house or when a medical professional accepts lesser payment for a client’s health care when the client’s medical program will not pay the usual full amount (the medicals usually agree to accept, to supposedly obtain more clients).

Underpaid employees subsidize customers/company owners. Farmers who do not receive an equitable price for their products are subsidizers. The underpaid migrant farm worker subsidizes the food items on our kitchen table. Likewise, workers in sweat shops and in dangerous mines and factories, the world over, subsidize our clothing, electronic devices, etc. Subsidizing occurs in a variety of ways. Sometimes subsidizing takes the form of exploitation.

It appears to me that the Warren consumers of gasoline are the true subsidizers of our July Fourth Celebration not because of their generosity but because of the lack of URC competition; likewise, Warren URC consumers may have subsidized the refinery owner’s failed 2013 effort to seek the Republican NYC mayoral nomination. The billionaire refinery chairman has been a vocal Trump supporter on both his New York City daily radio show and with his generous donations.

How much of the money created from the “differential per gallon prices” stays in our economic depressed Warren area – an area that is Trump Red — versus how much of that money flees to New York, no need to wonder.

To add salt to the wound, the owner, in true Trump fashion, blames Biden for the high price of gasoline.

Don Scott is a North Warren resident.