Washington (Platts)--5May2008

A majority of adults in the US believe that suspending the gasoline tax
for the summer is a bad idea, and 70% believe that politicians pushing the
plan are doing so solely for political gain, according to a New York Times/CBS
News poll released Monday.

The issue of having a gasoline tax moratorium for the summer has become a
central issue in the race for the Democratic Party nomination between Senators
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The two candidates are campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina before
the states vote on Tuesday, and they are pushing much different messages.

Senator Clinton, the New York Democrat, who is behind Obama in the
delegate count, has pushed her support for abolishing the 18.4 cents/gal tax
and wants to force oil companies to pay the tax. Clinton has argued her plan
would help Americans save money at a time when gasoline prices are moving
toward $4/gal and oil companies are making record profits.

Senator Obama, the Illinois Democrat, has argued that gasoline prices
would remain the same if the tax were paid by oil companies since the
companies would pass the cost on to consumers, and that the claimed savings
for consumers would amount to about 30 cents/day.

And he has further argued that even if the tax is repealed and oil
companies are not forced to make up the difference, then oil companies could
keep prices the same and pocket the difference.

A tax moratorium was initially proposed by the Repubican's presumptive
presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, of Arizona.

Obama has also said that abolishing the gasoline tax would cost jobs and
hurt transportation because $8.5 billion would be taken out of the Highway
Trust Fund over the summer.

Many economists have said the tax would have at best a minimal impact on
consumers' spending for gasoline over the summer.

In the poll, 51% of adults surveyed said that repealing the gasoline tax
for the summer was a bad idea, while 44% supported it. On the issue of
political expediency, 70% said that politicians in support of the plan were
doing so because it would help them politically, while only 21% said it was a
sound proposal. Of the 671 adults in the survey, 601 said they were registered
to vote in this year's election.

--Alexander Duncan, alexander_duncan@platts.com