Price at the Pump
Do you know how much fueling your car actually costs? What we pay for a gallon of gas is far higher than the price at the pump. There are a number of hidden costs in the “real” price of gasoline/diesel fuel, which add up to make a single of gallon of gas cost far more than the high prices we have been paying at the pump lately if one accounts for tax and program subsidies provided by the U.S. government and paid for by tax payers. The total dollar per gallon cost of military defense and damage to society, the environment, and public health is rather difficult to quantify as it is increasing rapidly all the time, especially with U.S. military protection for oil-rich areas of the world. At a minimum, the price of a single gallon of gas is well over the $16.50 mark. That means that if we paid the real price of gas at the pump it would cost more than $305 to fill up a Toyota Camry. Americans suffer a severe economic penalty by relying so heavily on oil. Whether we pay at the pump or with our tax dollars, we are still paying an exorbitantly high price for our overdependence on oil to fuel our cars and economy.

Average Price in U.S. 
Gasoline/diesel prices vary across the world, the country, from city to city, corner to corner and even from day to day. There are a number of factors that impact the price at the pump, and the cost of extracting, refining, transporting, selling, and marketing fuel is only one of a number of them. Although these costs do vary from place to place, they are relatively standard;what also significantly influences the price of oil are less predictable factors such as geopolitics, supplies of refined products and confidence in that supply, hedge fund speculation, and demand among oil traders. Much of the cost of a barrel of oil is not quantifiable, like the “security or risk factor” that can, by some estimates, add as much as $25 to the price of a barrel of oil.

Price of Gas with Tax and Program Subsidies
Every year, U.S. federal and state governments provide the oil industry, transporters, and consumers with billions of dollars in tax and program subsidies to help domestic oil companies be competitive with their international counterparts and keep the price at the pump down for American consumers. In the 2005 Energy Bill, for example, $14.5 billion in tax breaks were given to the energy industry, 58% of which go to traditional energy industries—oil, natural gas, coal, electric utilities, and nuclear power—and only 36% go for renewable sources of energy, energy efficiency, and cleaner-burning vehicles. Without these massive subsidies in place, the price of gasoline at the pump would increase dramatically. Not only do we pay billions of dollars a year in hidden costs, but these subsidies often exacerbate environmental damage.

Price of Gas Considering Defense, Environmental and Health Costs
The costs of consumption of oil include wars and other military conflicts, as well as negative impacts on our health, environment, and society, all of which we pay for, either at the pump or indirectly through taxes. Because we are overly dependent on foreign, imported oil, every year the U.S. government spends millions of our tax dollars on military operations aimed at protecting the supply of oil and ensuring its free flow on the world market. The U.S. relies heavily on oil imports from countries with unstable, corrupt, and autocratic governments, many of which are openly hostile to the U.S. and its foreign policy. The cost of defending oil-rich countries has skyrocketed over the years; estimates range from $38.307 billion to 140.8 billion every year, adding from 25¢ to $1.05 to the real price of a gallon of gas. Although there are a number of direct societal, environmental, and public health problems associated with our dependence on oil, like spills and leakages from pipelines, there are far more significant costs to our health, environment, and society from oil dependence, such as air pollution, global warming, groundwater pollution, sprawl, and an array of other massive problems resulting in premature deaths and virtually irreversible environmental damage. Again, these costs are difficult to determine, and many of them are, in fact, unquantifiable. However, based on well-researched quantifiable cost factors, the dollar value of these costs to our health, environment, and society range from $231.7 billion, or $2.00 a gallon, to in excess of $942.9 billion, or $8.13 a gallon, per year.