Companies are hiking prices and adding gas fees as inflation and gasoline prices continue to increase nationally under President Joe Biden.
Grocery delivery company Instacart announced a gas surcharge on Friday, following companies like mobility service providers Uber and Lyft, Protocol reported:
The company announced in a blog post on Friday that it will charge Instacart users an additional 40 cents to each order that is passed “directly onto the shopper” to offset the rising cost of gas. The fee will roll out in the next few days. The company did not say whether the fee will last indefinitely.
“In a time of increased fuel costs across North America, we know that every cent counts, and we’re hopeful this temporary fuel assistance will help offset some of the near-term challenges that shoppers are facing,” Instacart’s VP of operations and care Tom Maguire said in a statement.
“While shoppers on our platform tend to spend more time shopping and less time driving, we know that there is still an acute need to address rising gas prices and make sure we’re supporting shoppers during this time,” Maguire added.
Earlier this month, Uber, Uber Eats, and Lyft all implemented a gas surcharge on their services, too, Protocol noted.
AAA said last week that the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.28.
The high prices are so detrimental to the American people that even liberal governors are calling on congressional lawmakers to suspend the federal gas tax, The Daily Wire reported Monday:
The governors — five of whom are up for re-election in November — are Jared Polis of Colorado, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Tim Waltz of Minnesota, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, and Tony Evers of Wisconsin, all Democrats.
“At a time when people are directly impacted by rising prices on everyday goods, a federal gas tax holiday is a tool in the toolbox to reduce costs for Americans, and we urge you to give every consideration to this proposed legislation,” the governors wrote to House and Senate leadership.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (FL) blasted Biden during a press conference last week over the growing inflation, which DeSantis dubbed as “Bidenflation.”
“We warned about this inflation last year,” DeSantis said. “They came in and did the massive spending; the Fed has printed trillions and trillions of dollars, the biggest increase in the money supple that we’ve seen in quite some time. Of course you’re going to have inflation when that happens.”
“That’s what’s happened, and I don’t see it ebbing anytime soon,” the governor predicted. “I think this is likely to be something that we’re going to have to contend with.”
The Republican said the way to provide Americans relief from these rising prices is to “reverse” a lot of federal policies, which he said the Biden administration has “not shown an inclination to do.”
“Make no mistake about it, what you need to do is reverse those policies that are causing the inflation to begin with,” he told the press.
“Why are we not producing more energy here in the United States?” he queried, adding that we need more pipelines, natural gas, and permits for drilling.
Speaking of ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), Alaska, DeSantis said “there’s more oil and gas up there than in Saudi Arabia. It’s a massive, massive opportunity and basically from the time Biden’s come in, he said, ‘No, no, no.’”
“Well, of course that’s going to cause [inflation], and it’s not just fuel prices,” the Republican explained. “When energy prices are going up the way they are, that permeates the entire economy. It’s more [expensive] to transport … goods … everything is permeated by that, and it helps contribute to rising prices.”
“Let’s do what we can at the federal level to reverse some of the policies that have caused this,” DeSantis said. “And let’s try to give people relief throughout our economy, and if they did that it would make a really significant difference. But they have not shown an inclination to do that.”
Related: Six Liberal Governors Ask Lawmakers To Suspend Federal Gas Tax